iPlayer: Yet Another Gutlessly Copied Image Grid

After many years of having forced us to stare at leaden deserts all over the world wide web, media houses finally start to come to their senses. And years and years later we kind of find our findings from the 90ies confirmed.

While for a while now CNN seems to be moving in and out of the grid solution and after Austrian second tier newspapers like Kurier and heute would make the impression of being now committed to it fast and strong, at long last mother Beeb has yielded, if not on the web, at least on the iPad. We feel forced to introduce a new acronym to our vocabulary:

YAGCIG: Yet Another Gutlessly Copied Image Grid

It works like this in a world where the tactics of economizing on staff and shifting all that sourly earned revenue to technology and automation costs is the only lesson worth to be learned. European elite persons seem to be able to copy just a ridiculous wee bit from the successes of the likes of Brin, Page, Bezos and Zuckerberg.

We used to call this a rabbit in front of a snake or an oxen in front of a mountain, depending on wether the failing strength of the victim was more in its muscles or in its nimbleness.

Sorry, mother Beeb, while you will find some success with this and elder men, it will not suffice to receive our cudos. You don't care? That's ok with us.

From Human Gatekeepers To Algorithmic Ones

You might have read that interview with Anthony D. Williams on derstandard.at or you might not have. You might also have watched Eli Pariser's embedded TED Talk "Beware online "filter bubbles".

The interview is rubbish but as that talk is well worth watching in its full length, her it is again for all who missed. We do not agree with all of what Mr. Pariser says in that speech but with the larger parter of it. This is exactly why for all of these 14 years since 1997 we have consistently and adamantly resisted the idea of offering personalized news media. Personalizing is for the person who does it anyway and routinely, but not for the provider to offer.

And the thing is, that the algorithms don't yet have the kind of embedded ethics that the editors did. Well maybe it is slowly becoming true that they did and do not anymore. But then, on the other hand, we wish everybody lots of fun while coding the embedded ethics into the algorithms. Take care though, we won't accept proprietary embedded ethics just open readable source ones.

Enjoy!

Back To The Coffee House, For Sure

Every now and then, a member of our staff turns up at a news-stand, produces oldstyle coin or paper money and buys the odd magazin or newspaper. Strictly singular for we have canceled all subscriptions we have ever had.

And while tinytalk plc. has completely given up on killing trees and printing on rags many years ago, our stuffers still enjoy reading in the bathing tube and on the occasional busride, both environments, we deem, where print on paper in all its ruggedness, flexibility and its lack of disturbing links still has the advantage when it comes to the enjoyment of consuming what talented professional writers, photographers and art department people are still able to communicate by these outdated means. The gems get fewer but are still there. On weekends more often then on workdays.

Long introduction aside, what we really have come to write about today, is a grand special that the Economist, which is in the list of print products we occasionally peruse, put together for its latest number. That special is about the future of news media, a topic we are obviously interested in.

THREE hundred years ago news travelled by word of mouth or letter, and circulated in taverns and coffee houses in the form of pamphlets, newsletters and broadsides. “The Coffee houses particularly are very commodious for a free Conversation, and for reading at an easie Rate all manner of printed News,” noted one observer. Everything changed in 1833 when the first mass-audience newspaper, the New York Sun, pioneered the use of advertising to reduce the cost of news, thus giving advertisers access to a wider audience. At the time of the launch America’s bestselling paper sold just 4,500 copies a day; the Sun, with its steam press, soon reached 15,000. The penny press, followed by radio and television, turned news from a two-way conversation into a one-way broadcast, with a relatively small number of firms controlling the media.

Here then be the link to their special report that tries to explain, how the news industry is returning to something that might be closer to the coffee house of yonder years. Give it a try, it is worth the read and justifies the money that we have spent despite of online free content and all.

Three More Things

All of this sure rings a bell with us, for, at least as students and as budding professionals we have read far more issues of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Le Monde, the New York Times and the Daily Gleaner in a coffeehouse than at home.

It is a pity that the scan of the Economist's front in the online edition is so badly resolved. We think it is nice drawing: I saw her on ThouTube. 'Twas Ghastly. - I hear Tom Paine's all a-twitter. - Wilt Thou be my Visagebook friend? Funny to old farts like us, for sure.

The special also provided us with a nice new acronym for our glossary of unusual vocabulary and acronyms in tinytalk (GUVAIT): PFKAA, pronounced pee-eff-kaa, meaning: People Formerly Known As The Audience. Before that we used to call them KTMIFO (kay-tee-myfo), the krill that the media industry feeds on. Definitely a move to the better (DMB).

Faulty Data or Phenomenon? - More Metrics Trouble!

Comscore has released data on internet usage across Europe:

The stunning data point in this table is 14.1 average hours of internet usage per visitor and month in Austria. This is so far from comparable countries and so deep below the continental and worldwide averages that any observer would lean to have second thoughts.

If true it means that on an average Austrian internet users spend less than half an hour per day with the internet. That would be only 53% of the usage time of Norwegians, 72% percent of the Swiss, 40% of the Dutch, but even more stunningly a lot less than Poles, Spaniards or Portuguese. Austria would be on a very clear and significant last rank for internet usage in Europe.

Now the figures and ranks do not mirror reading "serious" media or difficult blogs, they just sum up every kind of activity, be it smart or dull, good or bad, interactive action or merely passive consumation.

Is this just another illustration of what the Pew organization titled: Digital Audience Growing, But Metrics Are a Mess? Or is this true and does it correspond with the falling PISA data Austria has the grace to receive these years?

Astonishing in any case and interesting nevertheless.

This Way Or That

ComScore has published newer figures for online video usage in Europe. What do these figures tell us. regrettably not much. They also have published data for June and Germany, ranked by Unique Users and giving minutes consumed. The results are sobering. Youtube - according to ComeScore - receives 194T hours of usage whereas the closest competitors, Facebook and SevenOne Media (myvideo.de & other sites) receive 6.7T and 6.2T hours respectively.

Online Video is still in its infancy and Youtube stays as dominant as ever. Even the strongest local competition does not quite make it there. A ratio of 30:1 is more of a humiliation than a competition. Even if Facebook is right there down with you. What it is with Turkey where Facebook seems to top Youtube, stays unresolved as as for tonight.

And, keep in mind, if you compare Comscore figures to Nielsen figures, most of the time Comscore comes out as the more optimistic instrument.

Online Video in Selected European Countries Ranked by Videos per Viewer April 2011 Total Audience; Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations Source: comScore Video Metrix
	Videos per Viewer	Hours per Viewer	Total Unique Viewers (000)
Germany	186.9	19.6	44,928
Turkey	168.6	18.7	20,732
United Kingdom	166.4	17.0	32,594
Spain	150.9	18.4	18,902
France	131.2	12.8	38,658
Italy	114.8	12.8	18,690
Russia	86.8	9.7	39,840

Top 3 Video Properties in all Reported Video Metrix European Countries Ranked by Total Videos (000) Viewed by Unique Viewers April 2011 Total Audience; Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations Source: comScore Video Metrix
	Top Properties
France	Google Sites	DailyMotion.com	Facebook.com
Germany	Google Sites	ProSiebenSat1 Sites	Facebook.com
Italy	Google Sites	Facebook.com	Vevo
Russia	Google Sites	Mail.ru Group	Gazprom Media
Spain	Google Sites	Vevo	Facebook.com
Turkey	Facebook.com	Google Sites	DailyMotion.com
UK	Google Sites	BBC Sites	Vevo