Never a dull moment at PCM

PCM is many illusions poorer as well as a lot money. Yet it improves its revenue flow due to a financial reconstruction and despite the hefty bonuses for the top management (of course the results could have been better if the bonuses had been added to the final results).

It is unbelievable that after so much mismanagement and turmoil there is still a reasonable financial result. The newspaper and book publishing company had a turn-over in 2006 of plus 3,4 percent from 653 to 675 million euro. The netto loss went down from 51 million euro in 2005 to 31 million euro in 2006.

The positive results were mainly made in the newspaper sector and the educational division. In the newspaper sector the job advertisements brought in more money as the Dutch economy is in full swing. And extra revenues at 50 million euro came from the sale of the book publisher Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum to Springer.

But what is the real status. The newspaper companies keep on working and still have to realise heavy cuts in their budgets. This while the managers of Apax leave with a fat profit and the top management cashes, while it is still possible. Two top managers have left in the meantime, each taking 2 million euro for less than two years of work. The CFO, who stays on, has returned his bonus of 1 million euro. Also two members of the shareholders’ board have left (of course without a bonus). So there is a CFO and a chairman of the shareholders’ board left.

In order to pimp up the picture of the company, PCM expects for the future:
• It has a fine starting position to profit from the economic upswing and new developments in newspaper and book publishing;
• The advertisement sector is picking up again, but the newspaper will have to look to get into the competitive game of television and internet (in The Netherlands newspaper publishers are not allowed yet to possess television stations);
• The company will invest in new products such as the free paper DAG; it aims to develop a cross-media news platform to reach younger target groups and invest in a multimedia strategy for the present quality titles (read established audience; mind you: cross-media for youngsters and multimedia for the elderly!)
• The newspaper and book divisions need to work on improving the results (of course after handing out bonuses so generously);
• The book publishing division will remain part of PCM and no longer be put up for sale.

So what is happening today?
- PCM is still negotiating in silence with the newspaper an book publishing company NDC/VBK. Mr Jan de Roos of NDC/VBK is rumoured to be the new CEO of the merger.
- Mr Marcel Boekhoorn, proprietor of the free paper De Pers has put a claim on the desk of PCM for 10 million euro. This claim represents the damage caused by PCM when the company was talking to Mr Boekhoorn about collaborating in De Pers project, but broke off talks and left promises unfulfilled..

Tomorrow there will be more on the 10 million euro claim and the project De Pers.

Blog Posting Number: 723

Tags: newspapers, cross-media, multimedia

Tracking eyes in print and in online (3)

The Eyetrack07 report throws up the question about the future of text online, at least to some degree. What is the future of text online? In an article, Guillermo E. Franco poses related questions to the usability guru Jakob Nielsen; but as he was probably too busy, he asked Chris Nodder of the Nielsen Norman Group to answer. And Chris Nodder still sees a bright future for text online. The lay-out of the article complies with the suggestions for journalists: the use of the Q&A form, which is stressed in the typography.

In the article there is a mix of questions about readability, writability, the eternal question of pixels and the improvement of usability in online newspapers. In the article there are a lot of observation and presuppositions. Together they are a mixed bag from which everyone can take what they like.

I might have missed something, but I did not understand the implicit relationship between tips for authors and the pixels in the fragment on screen readability. Of course the use of white spaces between paragraphs, the listings and the use of bullets make articles more attractive and makes reading from the screen more pleasant.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Just in case that you do not have time to read the full article, here are the suggestions for journalists, as spelled out in the article.

We suggest that writers:
· Use the inverted pyramid. Start with the conclusion.
· Write abstracts or summaries for longer content.
· Tell readers what questions they can expect an article to answer.
· Make small chunks of content with one or two ideas in each chunk.
· Group content that is similar.
· Write unique titles, headings and subheadings.
· Make lists, not paragraphs. Bulleted lists and white space can break up text.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Straight after these sensible, but not uncommon suggestions Nodder dives into the pixel issue:
Interestingly, although there are some very high-resolution displays commercially available (especially on Tablet PCs), the original prediction of 300 dpi being common by 2007 does not seem to have come about. The technology exists, but it just isn't being exploited yet. Additionally, until computers are produced in a form that makes them as suitable as paper for reading in multiple environments, paper will still be a major factor.

Of course there is a relationship between lay-out and displays, but it feels I like missed something in the argumentation. Besides I am wondering about the statement that only a 300 dpi technology will be the saving grace. Even the iLiad of iRex Technologies with 160 dpi makes reading from a screen a pleasure for the eyes. The difference is between the interlacing technology and the e-Ink technology used in the iLiad.

The question about the future of text online is IMHO more than a question of screens and writing methods. It is a generation problem in terms of media, but also in terms of users of the media. When I started out with digital media (yes I avoid new media) in 1980, there was only text. With ASCII symbols (128 symbols consisting of the undercast and capital alphabet, numerals and diacritical signs) you could make some rudimentary drawings (see the logo of the Fido network), but that was all. Also in videotext, drawings of cars had square wheels. By the end of the decade, it was possible to produce graphs, which was a great improvement for publishing. Digital music was around, but sending files online was still uncommon. But from 1995 onwards music came up, photographs could be transmitted and displayed and music still took a while, but eventually got into use.

But having all these media types available still does not mean that life changes immediately. A culture change is needed for this and these changes take time; in fact it might take more generations; these days I measure generations in completed academic cycles of four years. I am very text-oriented. Music is not an integral part of my communication pattern. Visually I use photographs, but that is what I did also when I was editing print. In order to use video I will have to learn some tricks still, let alone that I communicate in video.

Perhaps there is an immediate future for text online, perhaps even a bright one. However this future will be limited by the speed in which new generations pick up music, video and internet broadcast.

Blog Posting Number: 722

Tags: usability, newspapers, online newspapers

Tracking eyes in print and in online (2)

The Eyetrack07 report does not only tell something about the attention span of the reader when reading a newspaper online or print; eye tracking is also pointing to attention catchers. How can journalists catch and keep the attention of the reader. With almost 600 videotapes almost 600 videotapes of readers reading in print and online the researchers can look at headlines, composition of articles and the use of illustrations. The researchers can take a closer look to make articles more engaging.












The prototype portion of the study showed the value of alternative story forms as they related to comprehension and retention of information such as Questions and answers (Q&A), a timeline, a short sidebar or a list. The respondents were asked to read one of six different versions of a story about the spread of bird flu. Three versions were print (see illustration) and three were online. Each included identical information -- fact for fact -- but the story structure differed. At the end of the test, the respondents were quizzed about the story in an exit interview. In both the print and online, subjects who answered the most questions correctly had read the version of the story with the most alternative structure -- no traditional narrative. On average, we saw 15 percent more visual attention to alternative or "unconventional" text than to regular text. In broadsheet, this number rises to 30 percent.

This is really interesting for it means that the regular text with the lead and the conventional when, how, by who paragraphs, of which a story usually is made up does not draw a great deal amount of visual attention any longer. People want to be caught by alternative structures. It will mean that new narrative forms will have to be developed and taught.

In my mind the question comes up, whether the attention catcher by alternative narrative structures is the result of people being influenced by television and internet presentations of the news.

Photographs have been an attention getter for long. Printed newspaper need to have photographs on the front page these days. Logically eye tracking the photographs was part of the study. One close part of the study was to show the respondents 20 large photos available to be seen and 100 small photos. Proportionally large photos generated more attention, compared to small photos. As such there was no difference with the results in the first eye track study in 1991. Not only large photographs, but also large headlines got dramatically more attention than smaller headlines and photos. In fact, they were the first points of entry in print.
But there is more to photographs. Colour photos draw dramatic attention in broadsheet, compared to black and white photos. Live, documentary news photos -- photos of real people doing things in real time -- got more attention than staged photos. Studio or staged photos received little attention. And mug shots got relatively little attention in any format.From these first findings it looks like editorial staffs will have to develop a new way telling stories, structuring story material and presentation in print in order to keep the attention of their readers.

But the study showed also that reading online stories is a different game involving navigation bars, teasers and story lists that get primary attention. And then it is only the reader behind the screen. For there are still other points of research such as news delivery on large format screens, in high definition, on telephones and even smaller screens. Also elements of television news, like text that moves across the bottom of the screen, or animated graphics need close study. And searcheability online needs major attention (as I have indicated before we need better search engines than Google and Yahoo).

Blog Posting Number: 721

Tags: newspapers, online newspapers

Tracking eyes in print and in online (1)

When April started, a research study of the Poynter Institute, EyeTrack07, was published into the differences between online readers and the readers of printed media. It is a prelude to the Eyetrack07 conference which starts today in St Petersburg, Fla. Normally I am very weary of this kind of studies. I always wonder who was the contractor giving out the assignment for the study and what was compared.










This study is part of a long-term study by the renowned Poynter Institute, a newspaper research instate, which collaborates with its counterpart IFRA in Germany. The long-term study is to find out the differences between print and online and how newspaper editors can improve their print editions and get their online issues more pregnant.

In this case, some 600 testers of various US newspapers co-operated. They were asked to read newspapers for 30 days as well as the related news site. But there was more: two small cameras placed to the right-hand eye of the tester followed what the people read and for how long.

From the test results it became clear that once an online reader had selected a text to read, 77 percent did read it. But readers of a printed quality newspaper read significantly less than online readers: 62 percent. Only 57 percent of tabloid readers read the selected article.
The results are interesting. In general everyone in the newspaper industry believes that short articles are more read than longer articles. Tabloids consist of short articles and are popular with commuters. Yet 57 percent only read an article once they have selected it.

Yet the study also yields questions. With paper a certain selection is made by the editorial staff; in online this is less forceful. Also, online texts are usually shorter than newspaper articles. In Europe we have the phenomenon of teletext, textual news items on television. This service has been one of the longest running digital media in many countries in Europe. In The Netherlands the teletext service started on April 1, 1980 after a test period of almost two years. And it is still popular for news and airport departure and arrival times. The service is now also available on internet in the same text format.

Another question the study throws up is the attitude of the readers: between methodicals en scanners. Methodicals like a medium they can feel. Scanners like to hunt for the headlines. In the end 75 percent of the print readers have a methodical behaviour, while 50 percent of the online readers show methodical behaviour, leaving the other 50 percent to a scanning behaviour. Thus scanners and methodicals read as much text online. So the debate is not over yet.

BTW Did you get this far in the article? Okay, tomorrow I will go into the improvement editors can make in their print and online versions.

Blog Posting Number: 720

Tags: newspapers, online news

Cross country for cross-media (14)

While the CMID07 was going on on Hemavan (Sweden), my Italian friend Max Giovagnoli organised the cross-media conference Cross-Media #2 in Rome. Max is professor cross-media at the Link campus of the University of Malta in Rome; in fact he will manage there the new Cross-media Communication and Management Master of Arts next academic year!. In his former life Max was involved in entertainment and especially in crossmedia and broadcasting, amongst other as a director of the Italian version of Big Brother. He is the author of a book about cross-media; however the book is in the Italian language (see cover). He has organised the cross-media conference for the second time as you can see from the announcement. Having returned from Hemavan, I asked him how the conference went.

How succesful was the conference and how many people were present)?
Between the 100 and 120 people attended the conference. Cross-media # 2 had a great result on Italian media. No less than 5 dailies, 2 weekly newspaper, 2 television stations and 3 radio carried items about the conference.

What was the most talke about question. Was there a discussion on the term cross-media?
I openend the conference with a speech and focused on new trends in the cross-media communication and management market. I stressed the importance of videogames, virtual worlds online, mobile contents and new media narratives as the most powerful battlefields of the present and future.

What was the most convincing cross-media case brought forward in the conference?
It was not just one. In fact we had three cases:
- Second Life;
- Spiderman;
- Final Fantasy.

I also asked him a question about the Italian broadcast company Mediaset of the former prime minister Berlusconi. Mediaset and John de Mol team up in a consortium to acquire Endemol. John de Mol wants to get back Endemol, while Mediaset wants to learn how to make international deals. Being a big player or even bigger soon, it is important to see whether Mediaset would become a driving force.

What direction will cross-media in Italy take? Will broadcast be the main drive or film? And what would be the influence of Mediaset, if it acquires Endemol together with John de Mol; will that give a special drive?
It depends on what Mediaset will bring to the partnership, and on what it wants to achieve from Endemol. In general, I never had partnership or contact with Mediaset for cross-media initiatives and projects, and I believe it could be a significant happening, since there's still a terrible confusion in Italian television concerning convergence, multiplatform distribution and cross-media. But I could be wrong (I hope)...

Blog Posting Number: 719

Tags: cross-media

Cross country for cross-media (13)

After two weeks of chewing on the presentations at CMID07, I am about to close the mini-series. I might to some of some of the presenters and their subjects later, but that depends on some of the e-mail correspondence going on. In this posting I look back at the conference Cross-media Interaction Design 2007, CMID07 for short.

The conference was being held in Hemavan, in the North of Sweden. It is a ski resort for Swedes. As far as I could see, it was not exactly a mundane tourist spot. But the nature is beautiful; I will not say anything about the snow. Still it is not exactly a venue where delegates flock to like the Milia or MIPTV in the Mediterranean city of Cannes in France.

Besides it was the first time that CMID07 was held. With the assistance of the EU regional fund, the organisation Akademi Norr in co-operation with the University of Umea, a programme was set up and experts invited. There were 40 people during the conference with the majority from Sweden. It was an intimate atmosphere and offered a lot of room for discussion. The conference itself was rather academic and focussed on interaction design in cross-media.

Will there be a second edition and would it be worthwhile to go there? The first edition was well organised. Yet, the continuation will partly be depended on the financial support, that the conference organisation will able to get. Not many paying delegates will head up North on their own accord and cost, I presume. Besides one would have to decide whether this conference will remain an academic exercise or an exchange between academia and business. In the latter case, people from the broadcast industry, gaming and advertising industry should be invited to spice up the conference with business cases of e.g. the Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman or Second Life.

Personally I liked the conference. I met new people, I had good discussions and I learned some new perspectives. My definition of cross-media is practical, but does not take the full value chain of cross-media in mind. Especially the role of the cross-media consumer has been underexposed. Still I believe that term cross-media will not be sustainable as cross-media is an integral part of the communication process. I also think that the discipline of interaction design should have a close look at the term in relation to cross-media. By using cross-media in the communication process the designer should not only put the action in the cross-media, but also activate the cross-media consumer. And I am still chewing on the liquid media.

Blog Posting Number: 618

Tags: cross-media

Cross country for cross-media (12)

In one the last presentations at CMID07, I felt uneasy. Mikael Wiberg, associate professor at the CMID research Group of the Department of Informatics at University of Umea, sprang a surprise at me. He started to comment on the axiom of media as separated form and content and work towards integrated media.

Mikael writes in his lecture Midgets: Exploring the Design Space for Truly Liquid Media: In the early 90’s the slogan Information wants to be free” was a popular, and important phrase that described and guided much of the development of the Internet infrastructure. Similarly the phrase “The medium is the message” has made a great impact on how we think about media as a design material, i.e. we have had a tradition of looking at media as content separated from its form and we have thus made a distinction between media objects as content and media players as form. Thus an alternative interpretation of the famous slogan “The media is the message” might be that media is only about content, whereas it s form is left out to a dedicated media player which typically only supports a limited number of formats, or forms. Today, we can see this problem growing fast due to the development of new media formats and adoption of new media standards, and as a result of this people end up with media converters of various kinds for dealing with the current gap between media objects and media containers, e.g. media players.

He proposes to look towards integrated media. He compares the concept of integrated media to the sign in the language theory: a sign is composed of 1) a signifier (significant) – the form which the sign takes; and 2) the signified (signifié) – the concept which its represent. Analogue to this concept he presents a similar two-part model of integrated media. In this two-part model of a media object no separation exists between form and content; instead form and content are fully integrated in the same container, i.e. the media object. The interface, or “the bar” is thus between a certain media content and its corresponding media form.

He continues to argue that we now have technology to move away from traditionally separated media towards new digital and integrated media. By doing so a next step in the development can be taken: the fluid or liquid character of new media can be explored. He envisions that in the nearby future we can assume that media will move freely across different technological platforms, across different media formats and across different networks. Media will appear more as liquids than as solids. So liquid media are a next point of departure for exploring the design space of media.

Based on the conceptual exploration of integrated media objects and the liquid concept and based on research in focus groups, he has formulated a vision of “midget” design, i.e. a design of small, lightweight, interactive and integrated media objects that can live across heterogeneous media platforms. A midget is similar to the small widgets that integrate information (content) and form (executable application), that offer small programs. Likewise midgets could be thought of as small self-contained, remixable and executable media object, that can move freely across heterogeneous interaction landscapes.

Mikael can imagine several activities arising around midgets such as social sharing of midgets, co-viewing of midgets, midget mixing, and midget post-productions. Following this idea he sees a new media ecology arising that adopts a new life cycle model of media. While the traditional media cycle has consisted of a flow from media production, editing, and distribution to media consumption, with free moving midgets we can start to imagine a cycle of media creation, sharing, re-production, re-mixing, re-distribution, together with new forms of social interaction arising around these activities. As such these midgets would incorporate the liquid or elastic aspects of digital media.

This presentation is worthwhile to chew on, at least for me. I thought in the eighties that the separation of content and form was the best thing possible to move in digital media. In this way we could move texts and photographic images from print to CD-ROMs and online. But it is worthwhile to start thinking about the consequences of liquid media.

Blog Posting Number: 717

Tags: cross-media, liquid media, widgets, midgetscross-media, liquid media, widgets, midgets

Cross country for cross-media (11)

At CMID07 there were some four presentations about games. I will only treat one, the one about the game developed for the Swedish Parliament, the Riksdag, presented by Karin Danielsson Department of Informatics of Umea University in the North of Sweden. Besides its official duties maintaining laws, taxes and budget, this government body has taken on the task to inform people about the way democracy and the parliament works. Swedish schools visit the parliament and can learn about the parliament in books, comics, slideshows as well as other information materials, prepared by the parliament, such as the website. Also the sessions of the Riksdag are broadcasted now and again on television. There is now a range of media about the parliament available. But to catch the interest of teenagers the parliament had a game developed Rixdax (only in the Swedish language).

The game educates teenagers about the work carried out by the Swedish government. It is laid out as a brick game, whereby the player advances five levels. Random generated questions in each level are connected to a specific theme. Each correct answer yields a point, while for each wrong answer points are deducted from the score. After each question the player not only sees his/her score, but also how many of the online players have scored the correct answer. After a level is completed, an illustration of one of the parliament buildings emerges on the virtual game board.

The game was developed during the winter of 2004 and 2005. The assignment had been awarded to the media design company Alpha. In the design process 24 teenagers between the ages of 16-18 years old were included on different levels of the design. The decision had already been made that it would be a virtual brick game; besides the parliament had delivered the game questions. In the first session with the teenagers a Power Point presentation of the game was made; they could also play the first module individually on the computer. Afterwards remarks of the teenagers were collected, discussed and there was an agreement on the changes to be made. In the second session the teenagers were divided in pairs and could play the game, which took about 25 minutes.; again the remarks were collected and agreement on the most crucial changes was reached. It was interesting to hear, the researcher told, that the teenagers told her that they would play the regardless whether they were told by the teacher to play it or not , because the experience of the game itself and its content was considered motivating enough for them.

The game is up now on the internet and can be played by anyone (... who speaks Swedish). As you can see I tried the introduction, but did not get more than 100 points to start with (at least some instant gratification).

Blog Posting Number: 716

Tags: cross-media, games

Flash: CEO PCM leaves per direct

In my last posting about PCM, I forecasted that the CEO of PCM Mr Ton aan de Stegge would leave within have a year. Well he did within a few weeks after the exit of the equity company Apax and the re-installation of the former shareholders, three foundations.

Mr Aan de Stegge’s threw up a lot of dust in his short reign. In a few weeks after his appointment, he promised that the Dutch newspaper world would never be the same again. He did this at a conference of the broadcast industry. A free broadsheet was a pet project. He negotiated a deal with the financer of De Pers, but was called back by the shareholders. At his exit a new free broadsheet is on the drawing board. The new owners have asked him to be a project consultant.

Two years have passed at PCM without decent management and strategy. Mr Theo Bouwman, who invited Apax to step in, was pensioned off, saying that his period at PCM was not his finest hour (which is the understatement of this century). Mr Philip Alberdingk Thijm had to leave last month and took after 1 year of service two million euro along. Now Mr Aan de Stegge leaves as he has a predictable conflict with the new shareholders. He will also leave and take along a nice sum. So PCM has lost a lot of money to managers that leave after a short while.

Now the new shareholders have their hands free to put their own management in place and develop their strategy. Whether they will succeed is still questionable as they were not the brightest strategists and not the sharpest accountants before Apax stepped in.

But as I said before: Never a dull moment at PCM.

Cross country for cross-media (10)

I had not expected anyone busy with print in cross-media. Coming from print publishing, I was eager to hear what could be said about print and digital media. At CMID07 Mikael Malanin of the Helsinki University of Technology presented a paper named New paradigms of print.

In his paper Mikael observes that traditionally digital media have been associated with print media. A new reverse paradigm is to associate print media to digital. Another paradigm in media products is the community generated content.

The paradigms are not really new. In the nineties we have particularly seen the publishers coming up with extensions of their existing print products such newspapers and magazines. It was basically for marketing purposes that publishers went into internet. Usually they saw internet as a potential cannibalism mechanism for their print title. By now publishers have changed this narrow view and exploring editorial concepts as well as marketing concepts. Not all concepts are successful; for example, internet is not becoming the newspaper boy who delivers the pdf newspaper file in great numbers. But most newspapers and magazine publishers have digital extensions to their print product.

So far one cannot speak either of a replacement of the print product by a digital product. Only in a few cases magazine publishers had to change from print into digital edition; the Dutch publisher of Elle magazine changed over from a print to a digital product. So far the great revolution from print to digital has not come around. And given cross-media, analogue products like newspapers and magazines might stay in place until digital paper can compete with analogue paper.

Print products in association with digital products or services have been around since the end of the nineties. I saw as a Europrix2001 jury member one of the Finnish entries of 2001, www.sooda.com, which was definitely a cross-media product. Sooda is a dynamic and innovative online community for young people about 12 to 19 years old. Sooda is full of interactive services, new visual experiences and unconventional content. In summer 2000 Sooda grew into a cross-media product, when a printed school diary was published and turned out to be a hit. The other Finnish hit Habbo Hotel publishes in Finland a diary. In the meantime is it not uncommon that internet sites get printed products. Books are produced from blogs. Magazines are created around a website like recently the magazine RTL GP was created for the fans of Formula 1 in The Netherlands, who follow closely the race website of the broadcasting station RTL.

While the digital counterparts of printed products can usually be categorised as extensions, the printed products yielded from digital sites are often serving a community. This can be Grand Prix Formula 1 lovers (like me), but also a community of bird watchers. Internet, Mikael remarks, has proved to be an effective medium for creating and maintaining of online communities, which operate in the virtual space and are not dependent on geographical boundaries.

These virtual communities are often the proper environment to start new services with community generated content. In an enthusiastic community there are always community members to generate content, given that they have proper online facilities. The mechanics of such a community are most likely that there are 100 percent unique visitors of which 10 percent regular lurkers and 1 percent participating members, who will be part of a community generating content such as blog contributions and video and articles for the printed edition.

The conclusion can be that print is not yet dead.

Blog Posting Number: 715

Tags: cross-media, print, digital paper, community generated content

Cross-country for cross-media (9)

Mattias Arvola of Södertörns University College made explorations with his students into interaction design for nature experience. The basic question was: how can interaction design be used to advance information design, interactive services, and in the end increase the tourist attraction at nature reserves and national park? Some 60 interaction design and media technology students they developed initial concepts and early prototypes of interactive services. These areas studied were guides, routes, events, games, installations and websites.

Guides are of course the most likely candidates for interactive services. They can range from stationary versions such as installations, points of information, billboards and websites to interactive versions on mobile phones, PDAs or even dedicated mobile devices with the possibility to of GPS positioning. Some of the guides were community based, e.g. bird watchers. Most curious but interesting was a design concept whereby people would walk around with a small log of wood. The log had a hole through which you could listen, but also talk or blow into it. The main input was given by blowing.

Routes were another area of investigation. Also here mobile devices could be used. But also games can be used to make a route interesting. One of the students developed a route whereby kids could create an animal, learn about what it was doing and then track the animal on a PDA.

And why not use an online dating service to bring people together for a visit to the woods and even have a dinner there?

Installations were one of the favourites for explorations. One novel idea was to have a screen projection of a woman who lived in the lake and showed shots of other places and times. Another idea was to develop a living tree by which a face would be projected on the tree and kids could hug the computer augmented face on the tree (see illustration; design by Johan Blomkvist, Ruken Cetiner, Oskar Jeremias and Sara Schill Saran). Another interesting idea was the use of stationary mixed-reality binoculars. When people look through them and turn them in different directions, additional information would be given.

Websites were used for preparing a visit, but they were also used after a visit. They were also used for community building, using geo-tagged photographs. In one project, a family at home could track their father on a fishing expedition and see the photographs he took immediately after he had taken them (I guess of the whale he caught).

Several ideas were based on embodied multimodal experiences such as interaction techniques like blowing and hugging, touch, movement, sound and light, but also instrumental and social issues. (social web, sharing photographs, ranking them). Of course location based technologies such as WiFi triangulation, GSM triangulation, GPS, RFID, Bluetooth and barcode readers were explored.

In the ideas presented the students made use of features like cross-platform applications, multiple platform applications, embodied multi-modal experiences, user generated content and location-based information. This is a mouthful. Yet Mattias Arvola was realistic about the explorations as he considered them a mirror of our zeitgeist. He would love to see what students had made of these projects ten years ago and ten years from now.

(BTW An example of nature experience can also be found in The Netherlands. In a wetland area near our offices a sea eagle pair has made its nest and is brooding. Like last year the nature organisation has put up a webcam)

Blog Posting Number: 714

Tags: nature, environment, cross-media

Cross country for cross-media (8)

At CMID07 two instructors of the Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden (NHL) in The Netherlands, Eric Voigt (left) and Mikel Hanekamp (right), were present and offered a presentation on the minor cross-media at their college.

The Communication & Multimedia Design (CMD) Degree program is a 4-year professional education program leading to a Bachelor’s diploma (Bachelor of Multimedia). It is characterized by competence-based learning and flexible learning routes. There are 2 phases:
- The propaedeutic phase (1 year, 60 European Credits)
- The post-propaedeutic phase (3 years, 180 European Credits)

The first year consists of three mandatory projects each incorporating a number of competencies totalling 18 EC each. The remaining 6 EC will be awarded in individual assessments. In the post-propaedeutic phase (years 2, 3, and 4) students may collaborate in 4 ready-made projects, as a way to master the required competencies; alternatively they may plan their own learning route, as long as it leads to the same above-mentioned result. There are no formal majors (as yet), but students may opt for a tailor-made profile (totalling 60 EC) that fits his/her abilities and interests by:
- Working in route-independent training projects; these projects are either commissioned by external clients or set up by the students themselves
- Following an individual learning route through e.g. ‘shopping’ at other disciplines
- Doing an industrial placement (mandatory)
The 5-month industrial placement (max. 35 EC) in year 3 is intended to give students a better understanding of Multimedia professional practice, to promote their awareness of the organizational context, and to enhance their ability to relate theory to practice. The final project (30 EC) during the second semester of year 4, serves as proof of competence.

The course prepares students for jobs as:
- interface designer of multimedia products
- multimedia developer
- multimedia consultant
- content manager (administrator of multimedia applications)

At CMD the educational approach is through projects and based on the gaining of competencies, rather than swotting for exams. Students will not have to sit tests: instead they will be assessed, either individually or in a small group After the first year, projects mostly fall within the sphere of one of eight minors: Education and Multimedia, 3D-visualization, Games Design, Entrepreneurship, Rich Internet Applications, Concepting, Cross-Media, and a Free minor.

The minor Cross-media offers students multidirectional routes on different levels. Whether they are interested in camera work, editing, audio, programming, streaming media, database programming, or prefer marketing, public relations and management; they can either join the platform as a rooky and gain experience that way, or they can enrol in a Learning Centre Course and enter on a more experienced level expanding and deepening their expertise. The objective of the minor is to work as a team for 6 months on the Cross-media platform. The students will produce television broadcasts/ internet television to be aired on television, Internet and UMTS (mobile phone). Occasionally they will be producing programs for third parties. They will pass through all the stages necessary for bringing about a television broadcast, managing the website, and maintaining the broadcast corporation. The students will have to show their competencies in analysis, end products, working in projects and domains. They can specialise in audio production, moving image production, image production, programming, project management, marketing and communication and graphic design. The students will get guest-lectures, workshops, consults, practical assignments and participate in collaborations with third parties.

The students of this minor, roughly 50 students every half year, run cross-media content on http://www.mjuks.nl/ of www.mjuks.nl/umts. Amongst others a take-off is presented on Nordic walking. They students changed the title in Nordic stalking and filmed comic scenes on the street (enlarge the photograph by clicking on it).

Blog Posting Number: 713

Tags: education, cross-media

Flash: presentations and reports Australian trade mission to The Netherlands

In March 2007 an Australian trade mission visited The Netherlands. I wrote a series of postings on the subject. Paul Budde, the organiser of the Australian-Dutch trade mission has now put all the presentations online and has written reports on the Dutch situation on Fibre to the Home and one on Digital Media. He also wrote a European travelogue of his exploits before and after his stay in The Netherlands.

Presentations
Fibre to the Home
Digital Media
European travelogue

Cross country for cross-media (7)

At the CMID07 also a presentation by a representative of the Norwegian national library was planned. This was rather surprising to me as I usually think of libraries in terms of books, although some libraries might have a collection of music discs. But Lars Gaustad changed that picture. Sure, libraries are there to preserve the memory of a country and offer access and use of the national media. And they have been busy digitising books, magazines and newspapers for some years now. But he made it clear that this mission entailed all media (print, music, movies, broadcast and digital media).

The memory of Norway is stored in a mountain. The materials are stored ad random in files with a bar code and retrieved by a robot. But since Norway has a new copyright law the library has the right to digitise for preservation, but not for access. Problematic are still the areas of AUthentication and AUthorisation. Now everything is digitised from books to movies. And every half year the internet is harvested for Norwegian sites. There are extensive metadata attached. The 87 catalogues can be searched with retrieval software of FAST Technologies (IMHO the best retrieval software there is). So the Norwegian national library is ready for cross media.

At first sight one thinks that one can perform a cross-media search. But this is not true. The system is designed to search for cross-media in a particular context. The searcher gets various hits in different contexts. For example, the library has a jazz database with biographies, photographs, jazz history and jazz links; new players can add their music, but also their biographies and discographies. Information on performers can be retrieved, but also music. Using the system of the national library one can also retrieve everything about the first Norwegian oil platform Ekovist, which is now being dismantled; but one can look up information on the platform, which was on internet, in movies and on radio.

Some of the first fledglings of cross-media products can be seen in the section Digital stories on the site of the National Library. In Tiny Traces the footprints of children in the national Library are followed. The Promise of America makes available various resources about Norwegian emigration to America and Norwegian-American culture and history. Although in the Norwegian language, one can study a beautifully illuminated book from around 1500. The strange story of a letter that Roald Amundsen wrote and left at the South Pole December 15, 1911, that eventually reached the King of Norway through the efforts of Robert Scott and his expedition. Georg Morgenstierne is a multimedia database containing source materials originating from Professor Morgenstierne's expeditions to Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Iran.

The national library preserves all this for posterity such as society in general, for owners of the work in particular, but also to for later generations to sketch the history of culture and knowledge. Of course always the question will come up whether everything has to be preserved. And librarians will not start a discussion on this point. They will preserve everything in order to produce trusted repositories with data integrity and metadata. Libraries are going to be trusted cross-media repositories for the use in science and education.

Blog Posting Number: 712

Tags: library, cross-media

Journalism is changing

Recently the Project for Excellence in Journalism published its annual report.

The pace of change has accelerated. In the last year, the trends reshaping journalism didn’t just quicken, they seemed to be nearing a pivot point. Business model that has financed the news for more than a century — product advertising — still fits the way people consume media. Yet audiences are splintering across ever more platforms, from circulation in print, to ratings in TV, to page views and unique visitors online. Every media sector except for two is now losing popularity.

The definitions of enemy and ally in the news business are changing. Newspapers have begun to partner, for instance, with classified-job-listing Web sites they once denounced, brought together by mutual fear of free sites such as Craigslist.

With fundamentals shifting, we sense the news business entering a new phase heading into 2007—a phase of more limited ambition. Rather than try to manage decline, many news organizations have taken the next step of starting to redefine their appeal and their purpose based on diminished capacity. Increasingly outlets are looking for “brand” or “franchise” areas of coverage to build audience around.

For some, the new brand is what Wall Street calls “hyper localism” (consider the end of foreign bureaus at the Boston Globe or the narrowing of the coverage area at the Atlanta Journal Constitution). For others, it is personality and opinion. For still others it is personal involvement. For an emerging cohort of Web sites it is the involvement of everyday people (some alternative news sites now come closer than ever to the promise of authentic citizen media).
In a sense all news organizations are becoming more niche players, basing their appeal less on how they cover the news and more on what they cover.

The consequences of this narrowing of focus involve more risk than we sense the business has considered. Concepts like hyper localism, pursued in the most literal sense, can be marketing speak for simply doing less. Branding can also be a mask for bias. Handled badly, the new strategy might also render a big city metro paper irrelevant. The recent history of the news industry is marked by caution and continuity more than innovation. The character of the next era, far from inevitable, will likely depend heavily on the quality of leadership in the newsroom and boardroom. If history is a guide, it will require renegades and risk-takers to break from the conventional path and create new directions.

“I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing The Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care,” the paper’s publisher and chairman of the New York Times Company, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., told an interviewer earlier this year. The head of country’s most esteemed news company meant to sound an optimistic tone about journalism’s future, but the statement, like the industry, seemed to teeter between boldness and uncertainty.

This is the fourth edition of our annual report on the state of the news media — the status and health of journalism in America. The broad context outlined in earlier editions remains the same: the transformation facing journalism is epochal, as momentous as the invention of television or the telegraph, perhaps on the order of the printing press itself. (See Previous Reports).

The effect is more than just audiences migrating to new delivery systems. Technology is redefining the role of the citizen — endowing the individual with more responsibility and command over how he or she consumes information — and that new role is only beginning to be understood.

Our sense remains, too, that traditional journalism is not, as some suggest, becoming irrelevant. There is more evidence now that new technology companies have had either limited success in news gathering (Yahoo, AOL), or have avoided it altogether (Google). Whoever owns them, old newsrooms now seem more likely than a few years ago to be the foundations for the newsrooms of the future.

But practicing journalism has become far more difficult and demands new vision. Journalism is becoming a smaller part of people’s information mix. The press is no longer gatekeeper over what the public knows.

Journalists have reacted relatively slowly. They are only now beginning to re-imagine their role. Their companies failed to see “search” as a kind of journalism. Their industry has spent comparatively little on R&D. They have been tentative about pressing for new economic models, and that has left them fearful and defensive. Some of the most interesting experiments in new journalism continue to come from outside the profession — sites such as Global Voices, which mixes approved volunteer “reporters” from around the world with professional editors.
There are signs, meanwhile, that those the press is charged with monitoring, including the government, corporations and activists, have reacted more quickly. Politicians, interest groups and corporate public relations people tell Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) they have bloggers now on secret retainer — and they are delighted with the results.

These are a few of the conclusions we arrive at about The State of the News Media 2007. Each year, we try to identify new key trends facing the media. In the past, among others, we have noted that journalism’s challenge is not from technology or lack of interest in news but from diminished economic potential; that power is moving to those who make news away from those who cover it; that there are now several competing models of journalism, with cheaper, less accurate ones gaining momentum; that while there are more outlets delivering news, that has generally not meant covering a broader range of stories.

Blog Posting Number: 711

Tags:journalism, television, radio, newspapers