Friday Dose of social media: NJ judge rules bloggers not protected by shield law
NJ Court Rules Bloggers Not Protected By Shield Law — Let’s call this a small win for newspapers and a big loss for the public. It turns out there are curmudgeon judges too:
The judge ruled that Hale shouldn’t be considered a journalist because she hadn’t shown she was affiliated with a “legitimate” media outlet, according to Law.com. While Hale said she had written articles that had been published in trade journals and at least one newspaper, the judge found that she hadn’t proven that. Therefore, the judge ruled, Hale can be forced to tell a company suing her for libel the names of people who served as sources for a post she made on the message boards at Oprano — a site that covers the porn industry.
10 Stunning (And Useful) Stats About Twitter — There are some great nuggets of information on here. My favorites:
- 5 percent of Twitter users account for 75 percent of activity on Twitter.
- 21 percent of Twitter accounts have never even sent a tweet in. Many of these are most likely placeholders. Some might just be for people reading tweets but not sending tweets.
- Tuesday is the most active day of the week on Twitter, followed by Wednesday and then Friday.
The Trouble with Twitter trends — Twitter has to figure out a way to curate its Twitter trends. Right now the top trends that show up under Twitter trends are automated, which leaves them open to being gamed, especially by spammers or, worse, malicious links.
Twitter is growing rapidly, which is leading to some of these issues. The best way to solve this problem is to employ a combination of automatic trending topics based on popularity with human curation. Before that though, Twitter needs to find a way to block spammy links and accounts better.
Social Media marketing spending to hit $3.1 billion by 2014 — A good way to gauge the value of something is to see what people are willing to spend money on. If marketers are willing to spend a lot of money on social media, it makes sense for content producers to be on social media too. There is value in social media.
Amazon’s Kindle 2 gets a $60 price cut, now at $299 — Many in traditional publishing fields view the Kindle as a potential savior. I’m not so sure about that, but I do think the Kindle has a chance to get more people reading again. Now that the price is finally under $300, it might start seeing more mainstream adoption.
If the Kindle drops to $249 for Christmas, look out. Not only do Kindle readers read more books than the average person, but they also subscribe to newspapers on the Kindle, which run up to $14 a month. The Kindle won’t save newspapers, but it can certainly help to bring in more revenue.
Podcast: Real-Time Ads seek to harness immediacy of social media
MinnPost publisher Joel Kramer is aiming to bring the same immediacy and frequency of social media to advertising with a new ad format, dubbed Real-Time Ads.
Kramer noticed that local businesses in Minnesota were using Twitter, blogs and other social networks to get their messages out to people, and Kramer wanted to tap into this market. Real-Time Ads don’t even require additional effort on the part of advertisers either. All an advertisers has to do is submit an RSS feed of content that they are already creating (like a Twitter feed or feed from a blog), and MinnPost will display headlines or brief summaries of these existing messages that link back to the full message on an advertiser’s Web site.
Real-Time Ads look like a cross between traditional classified ads and Twitter updates. And like a Twitter stream, Real Time Ads are listed in chronological order. Advertisers are required to update their messages frequently, and if an advertiser doesn’t update for awhile, their message will be at the bottom.
MinnPost is currently vetting advertisers for this program in order to ensure a high quality experience. A lot of advertisers are interested in Real-Time Ads, but many don’t have an RSS feed of a frequently updated message. If an advertiser isn’t already harnessing the immediacy and frequency of social media and blogs, they probably aren’t a good fit for Real-Time Ads.
“If you’re only creating a message once a week, then this thing is not for you,” Kramer said. “Beyond that, we do want the space to be a value to our readers. So, we might say only certain kinds of products and services could be in there.”
Kramer strives to keep MinnPost’s ads high quality because high quality ads provide a better user experience and bring in more money. MinnPost only displays banner ads to Minnesota residents, guaranteeing advertisers that their ads are reaching the people they want to reach. This targeting of ads is why MinnPost enjoys a robust $15 CPM.
Real-Time Ads enjoy one significant benefit over other, more traditional ads like banner ads: they’re self serve. MinnPost is not involved in the ad creation process, and advertisers sign themselves up and provide their own RSS feeds. All MinnPost does is vet potential advertisers.
This new ad format is meant to be another piece of the puzzle for MinnPost, not a panacea. The site has banner ads, large sponsorships, small sponsorships, a jobs board and now, frequently updated, small ads. Banner ads are designed weeks or months in advance and are for longer-term campaigns.
A Real-Time Ad could be advertising a lunch special for two hours. A restaurant, for example, might notice that business is slow and then update their status with a new special to try to entice dinners to come in. Real-Time Ads are designed for the now.
“For readers, it’s a kind of marketplace of the latest marketing messages,” Kramer said.
The service is currently in beta and free to advertisers testing it out. A final price for the ads hasn’t been settled on, but Kramer said the ads will be less than $100 a week. Kramer said MinnPost is considering charging different rates for different placement. A Real-Time Ad that is placed on all pages would cost more than one that just showed up an ad-only page.
MinnPost is also considering charging different rates based on how often ads are rotated into a particular spot. Kramer also said it’s possible that Real-Time Ads will be targeted. For instance, a local sports store would be able to choose to have their Real-Time Ads only show up on sports content.
“There could be many, many combinations, with different prices on them,” Kramer said about Real-Time Ads.
Kramer views Real-Time Ads as a form of content that enhance a user’s experience, and ideally, MinnPost users would find Real-Time Ads valuable, instead of distracting like most online ads. Kramer is considering having a dedicated page of just Real-Time Ads. A business directory could logically follow as well.
The format is about a week old, and Kramer said more time is needed to gather feedback before making any major judgements. Advertisers seem intrigued by the idea. Only time will tell, however, if users find the new ads valuable.
