Today was the first TimesOpen day at the NY Times headquarters in NYC. I was able to attend the morning sessions and I’d like to share my notes and a couple of photos. I think the event was very professionally run and the room was completely packed. It’s interesting that they didn’t hold the event in what appears to be a beautiful theatre next door to the HQ building. Check out my notes and slides from the Tim O’Reilly keynote as well.

In the audience were people from Google, Yahoo and a good number of other large tech companies. I also saw a variety of bloggers in the crowd but it seemed like there were more large companies than say indie developers in attendance.

The big news coming out of the morning sessions was that there is a new API launching next week called TimesNewswire. This will give developers access to live headlines. Attendee Kellan called this new api a New York Times firehose and noted, "NewsWire API is the paper’s stream of consciousness."

President and Chief Executive Officer Janet Robinson welcomed everyone to the event and she said that everyone in attendance is part of the past history of the paper but a very important part of the future of the Times.

The concept of the day was to bring technology and the future of the newspaper together.

The other executive who spoke noted that they have an intense desire to make sure the content is personalized going forward.

They gave me a black t-shirt (size L) with the TimesOpen logo on it. If you would like the t-shirt, just leave a comment and I will pick one comment at random.

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This morning I attended the NY Times TimesOpen API day. I will have a post later today with my recap but I wanted to share my keynote presentation notes from Tim O’Reilly now. Tim presented on the topic of, "Technology and the Future of the Newspaper." While the presentation was a bit on the long side, it was a very good discussion. Unfortunately I was not allowed to videotape the session but the Times did and they will let me know when the recording is available.

Here are my notes from Tim’s speech:

• Hackers help push things forward
• Google is the best example of Web 2.0 because of their pagerank technology – made it social by looking at linking patterns
• his most important point of the discussion "what are you throwing away" – google thought about links while no one else did – what about other pieces of data are we throwing away that a business can be built around?
• "extract meaning from data"
• "Don’t show it to me again" – what he means here is that when he visits the NY Times home page, he wants to say to a story "i saw this already dont show it to me again"
• With regards to social networks – think about when you should lead and when you should follow
• Self-interest of bloggers is what made and continues to build Techmeme
• News will be located based on the devices we use (shows example of pizza in the exact spot he was at)
• Google Maps API – most successful API
• Don’t wait for some company to do it, just hack it – this is in regards to having an idea and not waiting for it to be done for you
• Tim sees many business models coming for journalism – he didn’t share any specifics

I was able to capture the slides from his discussion – click any of them to view the larger version:

Find more stories about: Conferences, newspapers, NY Times, NYC, oreilly, Quick News

If you read Time Magazine, you probably read it online. I don’t typically read it — but last week was different. The cover story caught my attention. "How to Save Your Newspaper."

The article focuses squarely on the slow yet feverish downfall of the New York Times, and basically can be boiled down one line:

Newspapers should really charge for their content.

The author, Walter Issacson, is a veteran of the pen-and-ink publishing world. He lays out his arguments in painstaking detail, even making reference to Bill Gates and drawing an analogy to software development (the free LAMP stack be damned). In the online version, Mr. Issacson spends three digital pages arguing why newspapers should charge for their content, yet does not offer ways how to effectively charge until the fourth and final page – and even then, he offers only micropayments as an option. But do not take these criticisms as an indictment of Mr. Issacscon’s article; it is a great and necessary read for anyone interested in the future of journalism. And to Time’s credit, the article immediately following Mr. Issacson’s speaks highly of e-readers and the revenue opportunities the Kindle and the like provide to publishers.

For Time Magazine, the death of newspapers is a harbringer of their own demise. The New York Times is "All the News That’s Fit to Print," while Time is, at its core, all the news that’s fit to put on shiny paper once a week. As the Times goes, so goes Time. The questions shuffling through their offices, and the offices at the Grey Lady, are voluminous and difficult: How do maintain subscription and newsstand revenue when news and analysis is ubiquitous at the click of a mouse? How do we ensure advertising revenue when Google and Craigslist offer a better value proposition? What happens if our online ad revenue rates crater? One can hear the panic behind every answer.

There are no answers to those questions – at least not answers which publishers wish to hear. That’s the bad news. The good news:

Time, the Times, and all the rest are simply asking the wrong questions.

The questions they should be asking is much more fundamental: Why did their business model – newsstand sales, subscriptions, and advertising, to use Mr. Issacson’s word choice – work? Why did it stop working? And how do we go back?

Paper, Not Content

I read the Time article – in print – at a relative’s house. The subscribers are thirty years my elder and also subscribe, naturally, to the Times. At one point during the visit, the homeowner sat down with the Sunday Times and said, "Let’s see what’s happening in the world." It is to that mindset which the Times and other general news media cater.

The Times’ goal is to package together as much news as possible to provide a horizontally-broad look into the world in which we live. Take Tuesday’s Times, and one sees an article about President Obama’s first prime-time press conference, elections in Iraq, A-Rod’s steroid admission, a tool-and-dye company’s economic struggles, Secretary Geithner’s influence on bailout provisions, and a smattering of Catholics who are reviving plenary indulgences. To give a count, that is: politics, both domestic and foreign; sports; religion; and a slice-of-life story from middle America – all on page A1.

As recently as 15 years ago, newsprint was the best option to meet this goal of answering, "What’s new in the world?" At the time, one’s options were limited – print, radio, and television. And print delivers the news in a manner unmatched by the other two mediums – the power of text over audio/visual sources.

First, the consumption is entirely asynchronous from its publication and exceptionally portable. If one has his television on one station, he misses the content served on the other seven hundred, DVRs notwithstanding. But reading a front-page article in the Times does not preclude you from reading the sixth page of the Style section, or anything else for that matter. And you can read it virtually anywhere save for the driver’s seat of a car.

Reading a newspaper also imposes virtually no distractions upon others, nor withdraws the reader from the conversations around him. One can quietly consume news and other information without subjecting the others in the room to the "noise" of the television or radio. Similarly, the consumer need not "go watch TV in the other room" or use a Walkman (remember those?) in order to stay part of the conversation around them.

But most of all, newspapers such as the Times allowed readers to tailor the product to their own needs and interests. The Times covers a multitude of topics, covering local, national, and international news; business; tech; style; entertainment; sports; automobiles; real estate; and a bevy of other topics. There is even a crossword puzzle. Only a few years ago, the Times ran a television ad aiming to increase subscribers – the focal pitch point was that there’s something for everyone. The ad even featured a young couple who discussed how sharing the Sunday Times is the highlight of their weekend – she reads some sections, he the others, and then they do the crossword together [!].

For many – truly, the majority of the population – newspapers were a staple of life, and for good reasons. But most of those reasons are centered not on the qualities of the content, but on the quality of the medium itself. Newspapers are convenient, portable, and do not require that one remove himself from the conversation nor impose one’s taste on others. Only one of the advantages that newspapers have over the CNNs or news radios of the world relates to the content: that wide, horizontal swath covered means that there is something for everyone all wrapped up in that two-dollar bundle of paper-and-ink goodness.

So: what broke?

The obvious answer is "along came the Web," but that is incomplete. The Web’s mere presence removes the newspaper’s inherent advantages in convenience and self-contained consumption. And as this recent photo by Joi Ito demonstrates, the increasing proliferation of small, Web-enabled devices makes reading on the Web arguably more convenient than reading the same text in print.

But again, that is only half the problem. Newspapers need to do more than simply move their content onto the web.

Realize that the Medium Matters

The big fault-line in newspapers business models is their insistence in being everything to everyone; again, "All the News That’s Fit to Print." Before the advent of the Web, this made sense, as newspapers and their news magazine brethren were the best way to deliver an omnibus news source. But the Web destroyed that model.

With a seemingly boundless quantity of information at one’s fingertips, the Web allows anyone, anywhere to find deep information on virtually any topic. If you are interested in President Obama’s first prime-time press conference, Google News provides literally thousands of potential matches. Sports blogs were abuzz with chatter about Alex Rodriguez’s steroid use. A smattering of political sites – blogs, independent sites, newspapers, and magazines – covers everything in Iraq in painstaking detail. News and analysis on every topic is out there in hordes, and often, for free.

Yet defenders of the newspaper industry object. "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?", says Mr. Issacson, quoting the inimitable Bill Gates. The quality of newspaper journalism, argues Mr. Issacson et al, is likely to be superior than what one will produce for free, and basic economic sense demands that people pay for it:

When I used to go fishing in the bayous of Louisiana as a boy, my friend Thomas would sometimes steal ice from those machines outside gas stations. He had the theory that ice should be free. We didn’t reflect much on who would make the ice if it were free, but fortunately we grew out of that phase. Likewise, those who believe that all content should be free should reflect on who will open bureaus in Baghdad or be able to fly off as freelancers to report in Rwanda under such a system.

For those of us who believe everything on the web should flow free-as-in-beer, it is hard to stomach this simple truth: He is right. At the end of the day, some of the best content will be produced at significant cost, and that cost will be borne in part by the consumers of the content.

Where Mr. Issacson errs is immediately afterward. "Charging for content forces discipline on journalists," argues Mr. Issacson. "[T]hey must produce things that people actually value." The error: Journalists are already producing things that people already value. The fault of the current problems lies squarely at the feet of publishers.

Publishers at the New York Times and, for that matter, most every newspaper in a sizeable U.S. market, appear hell-bent on being the news product for everyone, regardless of interest or background. And to make matters worse, these publishers are similarly wed to the form of journalism borned out of the nuances of the newspaper industry: text-only offerings, word counts suited for broadsheet columns, adherence to a certain style guide, etc. This should not be surprising, as that style of content is what the Times and others are producing as part of their core newspaper business – "repurposing" the content by simply putting it on the Web is both easy and no real threat, itself, to their previously profitable and stable business.

But now, the threat to that core is coming from outside sources, and in full force. That much is obvious – just ask the journalists at the Rocky Mountain News, Seattle Times, or other newspapers on the brink of extinction. It was not the online versions of these papers which did in the business, but rather the confluence of web content – blogs, independent sites, Google News, etc., and alternative advertising venues such as Craigslist and AdSense.

Yet not all content plays are suffering; indeed, the macro-economic landscape aside, some are thriving. Just over a year ago, my friend Mike Shatzkin articulated how those companies made a strategic decision, allowing them to adapt, survive, and yes, advance:

Consumer media in the 20th century tended to be horizontal and format-specific. The New York Times and Random House define "horizontal": they publish across all interests and markets. The Internet will drive 21st-century publishing enterprises to be more like what professional publishing has always been: highly vertical and format-agnostic.

Vertical content sources have expertise in that vertical – something the Times does not. For tech coverage, one would typically trust a writer at ReadWriteWeb over a tech beat writer at the Times, if for no other reason that the blogs require less pure journalistic skill while the Times requires less industry knowledge. The same can be said for other verticals: we prefer ESPN for sports, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes for business, Engadget and Gizmodo for gadgets, etc. These verticals are crowding out the currently horizontal Times.

And these verticals can do things of which the Times can only dream – charge their users for content. IMDb offers a "Pro" service which gives one access to additional industry content. ESPN uses its reputation as "The Worldwide Leader in Sports" to successfully sell access to its paid-for "Insider" service. The Wall Street Journal, of course, puts a large percentage of its content behind a pay gate, charging with ease for a staple product for the financial world. Those highly-tuned outlets are market leaders in their verticals, commanding high ad rates as well as subscriptions, even in a climate akin to a journalistic nuclear winter.

How to Save the Times

There are only so many ways to make money off content, with selling copies and sticking ads around it being two of the big ones. The Times already does that offline, and Mr. Issacson is correct – they need to do that online as well. But to do so, they will need to sever their online product from the reins of their paper-and-ink one, while simultaneously let the online business lead the newsprint one. For the newspaper industry in general, that is a radical change, but a requisite one if survival is in their future. That much is clear.

For the short term and, possibly, for the foreseeable future, the newsprint version of the Times needs to remain very similar to the product it is today. It caters to the same crowd which came to rely on it over the last three or more decades – a clientele which expects and relies on the Times to print recaps of Mets games, reviews of automobiles, wedding announcements, and, yes, the news of the day. Certainly, the Times will need to shed costs, which means less of the non-core articles which do not appeal to the majority of readers. This is already occurring, with the Times offering buyouts last April to reduce newsroom staff by roughly 100.

Where should those cuts come from? Let the online business unit decide.

The online business will have to divide itself up into vertical properties. There is some effort by the Times to do so already, with their portal-like structure online, but that – again – is newspaper-first thinking. A Times technology website necessarily must function different than its restaurant reviews property, which must function differently than the Science Times, and of course, differently than the core headline news property. For example, the Times probably would be well-suited by a bundling menus into their restaurant reviews offering online (something New York magazine understood when it acquired menupages.com) while the Science or Health entities may be inclined to reproduce Wikipedia entries on important topics. The details are left to the vertical chiefs.

The print product to come to terms with the fact that its horizontal product is no longer going to be the crown jewel of the Times brand. It may exist, to some degree, for the next five years or five hundred – we really have no idea. However, it will be of increasingly less importance both in the public eye and to the Times’ shareholders and business. This is a fact of economic life, and one which requires the print version quickly – say, in the next 18 months – shift its role within the organization.

The newspaper’s job must turn from strategic to execution – that is, the newspaper must execute on those details. That means the Times’ print product is going to be heavily covering the verticals its online unit can best monetize, with only a passing thought elsewhere. We may not see a featured wedding in the Sunday Style section, as sending a reporter and photographer to a celebration may not make sense for the online division. On the other hand, we may see twelve area weddings covered in-depth online, and the print version opts to only reproduce two or three, as makes sense for their revenue sheet. The details in those decisions are left to those with the best information.

To monetize the content short-term, adopt these three strategies:

One, for your new vertical sites, adopt a similar type of model that ESPN uses for each of its verticals. Give most of your content out for free, but put some behind a pay-gate.

Two, for the umbrella, horizontal online site (that is, the digital version of the newsprint product), offer many different types of digital subscriptions. Previously, some columnists were sold as part of TimesSelect, but it was an all-or-nothing endeavor. Allow readers to buy thinner subscriptions. Just want John Tierney and Nick Kristoff? That should be available and at a cheaper price point than "all op-ed".

And three, give your newsprint subscribers free access to everything on the horizontal online site as well as in three verticals of their choosing. This will increase the short-term value of the print version and therefore the ad space therein while also providing lead generation for the verticals.

Longer term, the verticals grow, as Mr. Shatzkin said, by becoming format-agnostic – that is, provide the content off-line as well as on, in video as well as text, etc. Put the restaurant reviews in a Zagat-style booklet. Create a YouTube channel for your Tech vertical and a podcast. Publish a 500-page compendium called "The New York Times Guide to Childhood Illnesses" out of your Health vertical and target the new mother market.

The bad news is that this all needed to be done five years ago, so the Times et al must act quickly. The good news is that they are already on that path – with their best-in-class Crossword puzzles. The puzzles are, clearly, available in newsprint, and are syndicated around the country and into Canada. Crosswords are also available in other formats – online for a fee (but free to newspaper subscribers), in roughly a dozen books, on your PC off-line, in calendar form, for the Nintendo DS, and on its own digital pocket device.

Now, they need to do that for everything else.

Dan Lewis thinks way too much about these sorts of things.

Find more stories about: Dan Lewis, newspapers, NY Times, Quick News

The NY Times is hosting a developer day in NYC on February 20th. Tim O’Reilly will provide a keynote during the event. It looks like the Times is attempting to create a developer platform and wants to introduce developers to their suite of tools.

They announcement notes, "The Times Developer Network invites you to our first-ever API seminar. Come spend the day with industry leaders, learning about applications, data resources and the trends that will shape the way you work. There will be a special focus on NYTimes.com’s new API releases and development tools."

I signed up but was told that registering is just a reservation not a ticket. They will let me (and I assume everyone else) know if we are confirmed by January 30th. Leave a comment if you signup – perhaps we can get a group together for lunch.

Find more stories about: newspapers, nextNY, NY Times, Quick News

Last weekend the big topic around these parts was how much content scraping is too much? Our house band even created a music video to explain the scrape and why it’s all about links and cash. I am all for excerpting when needed while using as little as possible with links to the story source. I will have more on this topic over the next week or so – trying to work through some ideas and concepts.

Elinor Mills at CNET has the lead on a story today out of Massachusetts. Apparently a Massachusetts-based newspaper has had enough and has decided to sue the parent of boston.com, The New York Times Company. Elinor notes, "The links, as seen on Boston.com’s Newton site for instance, lead to the original articles on the GateHouse-owned sites, which display advertising. However the lawsuit claims GateHouse is losing advertising revenue as a result of the linking because readers don’t see the ads on the GateHouse site’s home page."

The newspaper publisher also says the links confuse readers. NY Times spokesperson says this is a common practice used across the Web. I believe this topic will only become hotter as we enter 2009. While it seems that the NY Times may not have been scraping, there’s no doubt that there is big money in scraping.

Update: Duncan Riley has a good look at the case discussed here. He believes it’s more about competition than about the actual linking. 

Here’s the full complaint document for download.

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Dan Frommer from SAI sat down with NY Times chief technology officer Marc Frons to find out what’s going on at the newspaper’s digital division. Last week we interviewed NY Times Blogrunner Product Manager Philippe Lourier about where their blog aggregation tool is headed. Frommer gets a good look and more information on the NY Times overall digital strategy.

The interview focuses on content syndication, widgets, aggregation (w/Blogrunner), social overlay (w/TimesPeople) and Personalization. They are also planning iPhone apps and APIs so that developers can pull data out of their content repository. I am very excited to see that they are thinking about widgets. Why not get the NY Times content out all over the Web and potentially monetize the widgets or do a revshare with the partner sites. Frommer grabbed a screenshot of what the most popular widget might look like when it launches this summer.

I’d like to see more content discovery — the site is certainly overwhelming in content. What works in print doesn’t always translate to the Web. Perhaps they can learn from the Web 2.0 services that are creating strong discovery engines based on your profile and preferences.

As I pointed out to Philippe, the NY Times is sitting on a gold mine and they haven’t opened the doors yet to share and sell the gold. The online news landscape could change once those doors open up.

Find more stories about: Insights, iphone, NY Times, NYC, widgets

Yesterday I spent some time at the new NY Times building (which is absolutely beautiful) with Philippe Lourier. Philippe is the product manager of the Blogrunner product. He founded the product about five years ago and then sold it to the NY Times. Currently he is the only person on the Blogrunner team, but says that more people will be allocated soon. I was very much looking forward to this interview and discussion and I walked away pleased with the result.

I am calling Blogrunner a “topic discovery engine”. When it relaunched late last year, most of the reviews noted that it was basically a widget that lives on the tech section of the NY Times site. It’s a lot more than that now. A LOT MORE. There are Blogrunner widgets on nearly every page on the NY Times site. Those widgets drive traffic both to the source content and to Blogrunner topic pages.

It’s a content aggregator that aggregates over 10,000 sources in a variety of categories including tech, politics, money, media, law, music, etc. Every day, over 2,000 new topic pages are created on Blogrunner. There are two technologies at work – one is a link checker and the other is a content similarities engine. Blogrunner doesn’t use RSS to get the content and that leads to more meta-data availability on Blogrunner. Here are a few example topic pages:

• Google
• Tim Russert Passes Away
• Gun Control

Promoted correctly, Blogrunner could really injure Mahalo. When Tim Russert passed away, CEO Jason Calacanis had to send his “news team” and his Twitter-followers on a frantic scraping search for links and then built some content to create a page. Philippe said his topic page was live within 5 minutes and continues to be “live” unlike Mahalo. Most pages on Mahalo become stale very quickly unless it’s a topic that their team deems necessary to keep updating. Furthermore, they plan to, in the near future, open Blogrunner to the editors and producers at the NY Times to add human-curated links and content.

Many have compared Blogrunner to TechMeme on the tech side. Philippe explained that Blogrunner is completely automated and every blog has the same weight. This is very different than TechMeme which has blog weights and other factors that play into who gets the lead and who is #1 on the leaderboard. Philippe explained that the weight is actually done per post and the scoring system is similar to the Google PageRank system. TechMeme gives you a better single page news “what’s hot” view while Blogrunner offers more topic pages that can be “watched”.

Philippe was very open to my suggestions on how to make the product better and start to show more diversity and allow readers more discovery. What I’d love to see are Blogrunner widgets. Allow me to stick the latest topics and headlines from the Blogrunner system into CN. There should also be RSS feeds for every topic.

To be honest, it pisses me off that the NY Times isn’t doing more with this product. Blogrunner could be a huge offering for the NYT and yet it just sits there. It’s an absolute shame. Not only would the NY Times see more revenue from promoting Blogrunner, but blogs would see more traffic from the tool as well. We see this lax attitude with many startups acquired by large corporations — see Flickr, Delicious and Jaiku for recent examples.

If you haven’t checked out Blogrunner recently, I’d suggest you take another look.

Find more stories about: Blogging, Blogrunner, blogs, NY Times, NYC, Quick News, TechMeme

Stephanie Clifford at the NY Times has an interesting story today about a test that Rolling Stone and Men’s Health are running with certain advertisements in each print magazine. The idea is to take a photo with your mobile phone, email the photo to a specific address and then you will receive your goodie sent back to you. Isn’t that exciting? Doesn’t it make you want to jump off your computer and head down to the local 7-11 or Borders to pick up the latest issue? Kind of reminds me of the skill games at the amusement park – you shoot the water into the frog’s mouth for an hour, spend $25 and get a tiny frog which loses a leg on the way home.

Ray Chelstowski, the publisher of Rolling Stone said, “We’re always in the market to find other ways that we can work with our advertisers in providing empirical data in showing how readers engage and interact with our ads.”

It’s a great idea to make the ads in print magazines more interactive. But for adoption, the technology must be so easy that people will do it. And the ads and the goodies have to be well worth the effort. Would Britney Spears fans do it if they knew they would get a free Britney ringtone? Perhaps. The key is in the offer and the effort. This test program seems like a lot of effort for a very small return.

Above I have inserted an image of a QR code. If you are new to these codes, check out our coverage for a primer. Are QR codes the answer? Perhaps as long as they work when you scan them.

What I’d like to see is something as simple as holding your cam up to a QR code (or other "thing") and automatically the goodie is sent to you. No picture taking, no emailing, no effort. Otherwise these potentially innovative advertising programs might never get off the ground.

Find more stories about: Insights, NY Times, QR Codes

The NY Times has a very interesting article this morning about how the U.S. government uses top venture capitalists to help find innovations from tiny companies.

Author Matt notes, "Through a program that recently emerged from an experimental phase, the Defense Department is using some of the nation’s top technology investors to help it find innovations from tiny start-up companies, which have not traditionally been a part of the military’s vast supply chain.

The program provides a regular exchange of ideas and periodic meetings between a select group of venture capitalists and dozens of strategists and buyers from the major military and intelligence branches. Government officials talk about their needs, and the investors suggest solutions culled from technology start-ups across the country."

I can only venture a thought here but wouldn't it make more sense to consult with some top bloggers in the tech news space? I can only imagine that some of us see more startups than the vc firms will ever see or hear from. I get so many emails and releases a day and maybe 1% make it to the vc firms?

Find more stories about: NY Times, Quick News, Venture Capital

The NY Times has a pretty good description of what it takes to earn $50 million a year in ad revenue off a startup ad-supported web site. Some of the background for the article comes from Jeremy Liew, from Lightspeed VC.  My first thought is that most startups need to work towards many other things before they think about $50m. Let's work towards a good customer base, loyal users, virality, and others.

Tim O’Reilly, the chief executive of O’Reilly Media, says, “This may be why more entrepreneurs are going for low-investment sites that don’t need an exit but provide ‘lifestyle businesses’ for their owners.”

I think over the next 5-10 years, we will see hundreds, if not thousands, of new Internet businesses that are able to let the owners live comfortably with a very small team (if any) and afford the things in life they want. Not everyone is looking to build the $1.5b takeover sites.

Mr. Mitchell says, "But to make $50 million with a big staff-produced content-rich guitar site, sponsored by, say, Fender and Gibson, a site would have to generate more than 200 million page views a month, Mr. Liew estimated. "

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Jeremy Peters at the NY Times has a good writeup today about Joost (formerly The Venice Project). I have believed for a while now that YouTube won't be the answer for television online. YouTube should remain as a user-generated media site. That's where the $1.5B value comes from.

The creators of Joost come from a pretty strong background. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis initally started Kazaa, then moved into leadership roles with Skype (where they remain today).

From the Times article:

Joost (pronounced “juiced”) (allen note: I thought it was pronounced yooste) said last week it had reached what amounts to the mother lode of television programming: agreements to broadcast programs from Viacom networks like MTV, Comedy Central and VH1. While the deal’s terms were not disclosed, Viacom and Joost will share advertising revenue.

"We are very happy with the Viacom deal because it spans all their big properties," Mr. Friis said. “It has content from their biggest properties — MTV, Comedy Central — that are very good for our demographic." (Mr. Zennstrom was on vacation and unavailable to comment, a Joost spokeswoman said.)

While I am not sure if Joost will be the winner in this market, their application (which I check out daily) is pretty strong and the video quality is decent too. I look forward to checking out the Viacom clips once they are integrated.

Find more stories about: joost, NY Times, Quick News, venice project, Video

Below is Jason Sadler's recap from Day 2 of the Future of Web Apps in London. Jason is co-founder of popular startup Only Human and also runs a blog at Thought & Theory. The following presenters are covered below: Mark Anders, Knoi Vinh, Simon Willison, Jonathan Rochelle, Daniel Applequist, Rasmus Lerdorf and Richard Moross/Stefan Magdalinski. (Allen's note: This is a great recap post, very worth the read.)

Mark Anders (Adobe)

Mark's presentation started off with a great overview of the trends of web platform technology: developer productivity, performance scalability and reliability, technical integration and new application capabilities. This is where Adobe Flex comes in, creating flash based web applications with rich Actionscript framework and the ability to use it for free on Windows, Mac and Linux. Mark's demo of creating a Flickr Photofinder via tags was very interesting. The software seems to use a similar WSYIWYG editor like Macromedia Dreamweaver (code/design view), heavy emphasis on using "states" which give you the ability to have two (or more) versions of the same file open within one file, a markup language called MXML and a style component to support CSS.

The next demo Mark showed was that of Apollo, the same product Michael Arrington mentioned about 5 times in his presentation (so I guess that means it is good?). Mark's description of Apollo was using Flash and XML to create desktop applications via local files, online/offline content, drag/drop and background files. He showed two demos, one that was an application called Maptactular, which used Google Maps with flash overlayed, and the second demo was an eBay desktop application that had most of the features of eBay.com.

I remember when Flash first came to the web world and there were a lot of compliance issues and version control; who was using which x.0, who had what web securities, what your local cache settings were set to, etc. If web applications use this technology and users aren't up to date on the newest flash player they will have to go through the download and install process. For things as fragile as web applications, which you want to reach as large of an audience as possible, aren't you going to run into all the same previous flash hurdles? I could see a lot of features being created in Flex, but I am skeptical about how many real-life applications will be made with it.

Twingly (Featurette of the conference)

Ryan took a second to bring two students from Sweden up on stage to show off a small web application. The application was a 3D digital representation of the blogosphere connected to Google Maps. It showed blogs across the world, varying in intensity by the amount of light and size of the light rods. You can click any blog on the map and it will take you to that blog. There is also a small ring around the world, which represents a pie chart of the amount of bloggers per country.

Kudos to Ryan for giving these guys the time to show off their web application.

Knoi Vinh (NYtimes.com)

In coverage of Day 1 I know I said that Stefan Fountain's Soocial.com presentation was the highlight of the conference, but Khoi's speech was by far the most interesting and compelling. Coming from a background working on an editorial website (as a designer/developer), it was very fascinating to hear what Khoi had to say about how NYtimes.com dealt with editorial design challenges.

He talked a lot about templates they use and how much they get changed around but still keep them very limited on design. I wonder if someone will come up with a design-driven WYSIWYG template editor? It would open the doors for architectural planning around content and only help to focus more on the content and less on the design limitations. I completely agree with Khoi's point that there is a lot of tension between designers and editors and the curve to new technology slopes upwards very slowly.

Khoi brought up a great point about "countervailing forces in quality":

• High Definition vs YouTube
• Skype vs SMS
• TimesReader vs Memorandum
• Digital SLR's vs Camera Phones

It is almost ridiculous that in a society of growing technology the masses of people are still hooked on rudimentary and simple items. Obviously some of these have a cost involved, but it's amazing how basic some of the most used technologies are in the world.

The last point I wanted to touch on from Khoi's presentation was offend experts, not beginners. This makes so much sense because experts should have thick skin and will be much harder to offend. The last thing you ever want to do is not listen to your users and only focus on what an "expert" is telling you. Feedback comes in all shapes and sizes from different people and it is our job to do the things we believe in and take into account all the suggestions we get.

Simon Willison (OpenID)

The concept of OpenID is very solid, but I think the implementation and consistency of it around the web is going to be the hard part. In essence you are supposed to be able to get rid of all of your user accounts and passwords by using OpenID (which initially requires a user account ID, password and personal info if you desire). AOL, Symantic, DIgg and Microsoft have all joined the OpenID parade, hoping to lead the way for everyone else across the web.

The biggest problem I have with OpenID, is that if you wanted to set your OpenID account up with your own host or with a site you enjoy that isn't mainstream, what do you do if that host goes away? You would think there could be ONE domain that everyone creates an OpenID account on, but then you run into possible issues of unique names (just like today with user accounts). I think OpenID is good for the greater purpose, but at the moment it is hard to swallow for your everyday Internet user. If my mom/dad can't figure it out, is it ready yet?

Jonathan Rochelle (Google Docs & Spreadsheets)

The needs of many outweigh the needs of a few – this should be Google's mantra. A lot of people have Microsoft Office, use Word and Excel regularly, but what if this software didn't come with your computer? Are you really going to spend money on Office when you can get most of it through Google Docs & Spreadsheets (or another avenue)? Google does a great job of creating simple, easy to use and functional applications that appeal to the masses.

Jonathan talked briefly about the acquisition process, buying 2Web Technologies/XL2 Web (which he was apart of) and Upstartle/Writely. They were two separate projects that were merged to create Docs & Spreadsheets. I would love to hear more about the acquisition process and what it is like working for yourself and then coming into the Google world.

With the announcement of Google Apps Premier Edition a few days ago, you get all of the applications created by Google in one friendly/free package (until April 30, 2007 when it becomes corporate/paid subscription). Jonathan said, "We have nothing to announce at this time" while at the conference, doesn't he know it's not nice to keep secrets?

Daniel Applequist (Vodafone)

It's hard to listen to a presentation entirely dedicated to cell phone applications when the iPhone is looming overhead. I am all for the advancement of the Internet on cell phones, but once there is a full-fledged scalable browser without limitations, what's the point of any application? When I say 'application' I am referring to his demo which showcased a soccer team's stats, some video and a few other editorially related features. What can't you get from that team's website?

Don't get me wrong, the iPhone is not out yet, has not been approved by the FCC and is still in a patent war with Cisco. However, are people really going to go this route for the time being? I know that these applications aren't enticing to me at all and maybe that is simply the American outlook towards cell phones.

Again, I hate to overshadow this presentation with another Apple reference, but Apple transformed the computer when there were already computers out there and Apple also has a pretty good product called an iPod (not even close to the first MP3 player). There are cell phones with web applications that are very popular, people probably use them everyday, but when there is a fully scalable limitless web browser (wait, doesn't my Blackberry have Internet…….) who is going to use applications on their phone?

Rasmus Lerdorf (Creator of PHP)

I have to mention Rasmus' funny stab at the wireless Internet mix-up at the conference, I am sure Ryan was ready to bust some knee caps after all the hassle. Rasmus showed a couple of slides depicting images of a cruise ship, a desert and a tropical mountain. He said he had given presentations at all of these places around the world and at every one there was free wireless access – touché!

Rasmus made an excellent point that he was not concerned with the "Future of…" anything, only concerned with doing things right today and enduring the pain to get to the destination. He talked about why people contribute to things: self-interest, hormones (specifically oxytocin: nature's trust hormone), self-expression and the desire to improve the world. In all aspects of life, it is not about you, it is about what people think about themselves.

I greatly enjoyed Rasmus' presentation and think his final points were spot-on:

• Avoid participation gimmicks
• Get oxytocin flowing
• Solve one problem
• Clean and intuitive UI
• Make it fast and scalable

Richard Moross & Stefan Magdalinski (MOO)

Ryan could not have picked a better presentation to end the conference (aside from the following day of workshops of course). Richard immediately grabbed everyone's attention with a slide entitled "Print is dead." He talked about how much he enjoyed curling up in bed with his laptop to read the .PDF of a book (instead of a novel), how he loved to send informal SMS messages to people on special occasions (instead of greeting cards – which I think Hallmark is doing okay with these days) and how whenever you go to a conference everyone is bluetoothing'ing their business cards to each other (instead of handing them out like 99.9% of the attendees did).

The guys at MOO had to stand out, had to become 'remarkable' and had to tackle the challenge of using a process everyone in the web world says is dead. When they launched another company (Qoop) launched with the same concept. The difference was in MOO's dedication to using the best paper, the best trees, recyclable paper, a unique size and developing a great partnership with Flickr. When you looked at the two companies on Flickr, Qoop had two comments and MOO had 2,264! I would say they have a stronghold on the market and have created a successful product. It was interesting to hear about their marketing strategy, which was summed up in one word – free. They believed that if they gave the MOO cards away for free from the beginning and people liked them, they would be willing to buy them. They also used some small tactics to grow their brand and develop a tone using funny notes inside packaging, cute e-mails and every card shipping with a luggage tag.

I think that we can come up with a very unique partnership with MOO and I look forward to talking to Richard very soon. It was evident that a lot of people had similar aspirations as he had a line of people waiting for him after he spoke (they could have been going after the free MOO card offer though?).

Find more stories about: Conferences, fowalondon07, future of web apps, NY Times

The New York Times has a good (albeit short) interview with the Blockbuster CEO, John Antioco. He speaks about Netflix's new download service along with how many users actually convert from free trials to full paying customers.

Mr. Angioco mentions that their download service will begin in 2007. His comment about digital downloading, "While we don’t see digital downloading as becoming a big business in the next year or two, our mission is to provide customers with completely convenient access to movies."

Having tried both Netflix (I think I was one of their initial customers way back when), Walmart (gone now) and Blockbuster, I think the net result is that the services are basically so close in overall quality that whomever gets you the movie you want quicker might be your choice in the long run.

I have started to see ATM-style machines that dispense DVDs for $1 a day popping up at malls, supermarkets, airports, etc. In fact, in NYC I noticed a machine next door to a Blockbuster. Without an online membership, individual rentals at Blockbuster can be as high as $5. Why not just rent it for a buck?

I still give the nod to Blockbuster with the ability to return the movies in their stores along with picking up another. Of course for the lazy (me included), the download ability from Netflix might win out.

Find more stories about: blockbuster, Interviews, NY Times, Quick News

Scott Kirsner has a column today in the Times about bringing bling to your blog using widgets. He begins the column by describing a pastor's widget usage. He shows three popular widgets: Blufr, Streampad and ChipIn.

From the column, According to Widgetbox, its most popular widget allows bloggers to incorporate an updated feed of news items from the site Digg into their blogs. Matt Mullenweg, creator of the WordPress blogging software, says the widgets that his users have been incorporating into their sites lately include Meebo, an instant-messaging application that allows blog authors to chat with their visitors.

“One of my favorites,” Mr. Mullenweg said, “is the Sphere It widget, which pops up a window to show you articles and other blog posts related to what you’re reading.”

2007 will certainly include widgets as part of the big trends for the year. As companies (startups and the old standards) try to get their information in front of consumers and people who consume media, widgets can provide an avenue for this. The interesting thing will be to watch if (or how) these widgets become monetization engines for these same companies. Could you signup for a better widget for $x/month? What about advertising inside the widgets? Some will argue that the widgets provide branding and typically a link back to the widget creator and that is enough. But just like the airline industry, one one airline takes the leap and raises a fare, the others follow. We will see this same trend here I believe.

Find more stories about: Insights, NY Times, widgets

The New York Times has two great columns today. One is about how boys and girls differ in their usage of social sites. The other is about how one traditional writer is finding using a blog to create a tight bond with his readers.

Boys and Girls Use Social Sites Differently

The article discusses the differences between boys and girls and their usage of social sites. If you plan to market to this audience, you need to read and understand the full report. Here are a couple excerpts:

Older teenage girls are far more likely than younger girls, or boys of any age, to use social-networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The study found that, while older girls use such sites the most, older boys are more likely to meet new people through them. Sixty percent of older boys, for example, say they use the sites to make new friends, while only 46 percent of older girls do. And older boys are more than twice as likely to say they use the sites to flirt.

24-Hour Newspaper People

I completely agree with David Karr, author. I think as our blogs grow in readership, we build relationships with the people who comment. When a person comments on every post we write, we do start to form a relationship. I know on HTMLCenter when a person does not "check-in", I start to worry after a bit. I have also called up and emailed site participants to see if all is ok. This post by David is a must read.

Find more stories about: NY Times, Quick News, Social Networking