Matthew Wall: 'an analogue mind in a digital world'

Does this man know the future of newspapers?

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Montgomery, chief executive of Mecom, the European media company, believes newspapers that don't change their business models are doomed. Well, tell us something we don't know, David. The big question is whether tradtional news journalism can survive the new digital landscape in which content has to pay its way.

In my New Media Age interview Montgomery - affectionately known as Rommel to his Private Eye detractors - lays out his vision for the future of newspapers and journalism. 

Is it a vision you share?

Techno Nag

Since when did technology become so naggy?

 

“Tsk, tsk! You haven’t put your seatbelt on…”, scolds Nanny car. “You should be ashamed of yourself…a man in your position with your responsibilities…”.

 

“Ping, ping, ping…the sidelights are still on! Really, you are becoming so forgetful these days. Incipient senility? Too many late nights? You know you shouldn’t have gone to that karaoke bar til 4am…What were you thinking? Are you sure you should be driving at all?”

 

And that’s before you’ve even made it into the house. But don’t expect any respite there.

 

“Bleep, bleep, bleep. Er…I’ve finished now, OK? Your dishes are sparkly clean. You can empty me whenever you like.”

 

“OK, thanks. Be right with you.”

 

“Bleep, bleep, bleep…I said I’ve finished now. Not sure you heard. Feel free to empty me…whenever you’re ready…don’t mean to hassle or anything…”.

 

“Yes, OK. I heard you. Take a chill pill. I’m just doing the SuDoKu….”

 

“Bleep…yes, I see, but the thing is…erm…you’re meant to open the door to let the steam out a bit? Helps the drying process…Just…if you were interested in doing things properly…that is.”

 

“Oh for goodness sake, shut up! I’ve only got a few numbers left and my delaying opening your precious door by a few minutes is unlikely to imperil western civilisation, all right?”

 

“Bleep…sorry I spoke. Just trying to help. Just doing what I was designed to do…”

 

“Oh, now don’t get all huffy on me please! You’re a machine…undoubtedly one of the greatest technological inventions ever…but you’re not my wife, so just drop it will you?”

 

“Bleep”

 

Then I make the schoolboy error of leaving the fridge-freezer door open a fraction of a second longer than I should have.

 

“Bong, bong, bong….Are you trying to kill all the polar bears you selfish git? Don’t you want your daughters to have a planet to grow up in? Shut the door now or we’re all going to DIE!!!”

 

The smoke alarm screams at me when I burn the toast. The computer barks that a ‘.dll’ file is missing but doesn’t think to tell me what to do about it. My mobile keeps whingeing at me to do stuff I already knew I had to do. And the answering machine flashes: “You’ve got messages! Listen to them! Listen to them now! Now I said…you lazy inefficient bastard!!!!”

 

Run. Run out the door. Leave every gadget behind. Go and watch the deer in the park.

 

It’s peaceful there.

NewsHub for newspapers?

Here's my solution for how newspapers could charge for online news content.

They all have to agree to put their news content behind a pay-wall - NewsHub. This means taking it off their existing websites and withdrawing it from the prying eyes of Google's robots. Yes, I know this sounds like heresy, but hear me out.

Readers could then susbscribe to the news content of individual newspapers via NewsHub or select the whole lot plus access to archives for a competitive monthly fee. This would be an immensely powerful research tool that I, for one, would be willing to pay for. It would finally give newspapers a big enough weapon to fend off the might of the taxpayer-funded BBC.

Newspapers would still retain creative control over how their content is displayed and could still benefit from advertising revenue that comes to them via NewsHub traffic. This would leave them free to concentrate on providing, original, added-value content on their branded websites and adopt whatever pay-per-view micropayment solution they fancied. News excerpts would be followed by a NewsHub link to a 'subscribe' page.

At the moment, giving away the crown jewels just isn't sustainable, as everyone acknowledges. And with its newswire tie-ups Google is increasingly stealing web traffic from newspapers. It's time the print media stood up for themselves. Going it alone ain't going to work.  

By working together the quality newspapers can demonstrate that good journalism is worth paying for. Because print, and the culture it embodies, does offer something more than other media can offer: depth. In my view a fair bit of BBC online news is quite perfunctory, coming as it does from a TV tradition. The only people who seem to break stories for the Beeb are former print journalists.

And I'm convinced that newspaper archives are a valuable untapped resource which could be easily exploited online.

This NewsHub idea - which I'm sure other people have thought about - will only work if newspapers co-operate, and that, in this most competitive of markets, is unlikely I have to admit. As David Montgomery, chief executive of Mecom said when I interviewed him recently: "Getting newspapers to co-operate is like herding cats".

But when the Sunday Times makes the first loss in its history, the Guardian continues to lose tens of millions a year, the London Evening Standard goes free, the Observer's future is still in doubt, and the Independent teeters on the edge of oblivion, it's clear something radical has to be done to cope with the digital era.

Cats can be trained. I've seen it with my own eyes. In a circus.

PayPal opens up

When PayPal announced that it was opening up its payment platform to third party developers in the summer it was ostensibly "to accelerate innovation", says Osama Bedier, PayPal's VP of product development and the man in charge of PayPal X, as they've chosen to call it.

Cynics might suggest is had more to do with mounting competiton from Amazon and Google in the online payment processing marketplace and a desire to become less reliant on its parent eBay for transaction volume (currently at 55%).

Whatever the reason, Bedier tells me that 600 developers are now on board busily thinking up new ways to develop online payments. For example, one team is developing one-click payments using mobile phones that recognise bar codes; another is working on a way groups of people can split restaurant bills amicably in one payment transaction. Online giving organisations can see obvious benefits in making online payments easier.

Micropayments - below £1 say - have not been commercially viable so far, but Paypal is hoping that opening up their platform will help reduce transaction costs - something that should prove attractive to the online games industry (companies like Playfish and Zynga) in particular, as well as newspapers looking to charge for content.  

On 2nd October PayPal announced that XBox Live Marketplace is now accepting PayPal, and Blackberry maker RIM already allows software applications to be bought using PayPal. Sun Microsystems is already a partner, as is Microsoft.

PayPal is holding its next developer conference on 3rd November. Expect a flurry of commercial partner deals and some interesting new online payment applications.

Read this before investing with IAP Global

This is Jim Moore - notorious property tycoon who has left two failed property investment companies behind him and a string of disgruntled investors. If you're thinking of investing with his latest phoenix-like venture, IAP Global, please read my Interactive Investor investigations first: (1), (2), (3) & (4).

 Vince Cable MP tried hard to have the Serious Fraud Office investigate Moore's companies, but it declined citing lack of sufficient evidence to mount a successful prosecution. Several of his unhappy investors would beg to differ and are still doggedly trying to have their day in court.

You have been warned.

Cars go digital on ecodrive

Luis Cilimingras (left) is head of digital strategy for Fiat. He has overseen the Italian motor manufacturer's launch of ecodrive, a USB plug-in application that enables drivers to analyse their driving techniques for fuel efficiency.

A USB stick records data from the engine that can then be uploaded onto computer for the software program to analyse. The data can tell you if you're over-revving, for example, or which type of journey is most fuel inefficient. 

It is yet another example of how the digital and the physical worlds are merging. The new Toyota Prius incorporates a similar 'driving efficiency' disply projected onto the windscreen.

But what struck me when I was interviewing Luis for New Media Age was the use all this collected customer data could be put to - informing future car designs, for example, or even changing the way city planners design roads.

Digital data is a design tool - if only we learn how to use it properly and willingly offer it up.   

A Smarta kind of entrepreneur

Starting up a website offering practical help and advice to small businesses in the teeth of a recession is either brave or foolhardy. But that's what entrepreneur Shaa Wasmund (left), 35, has done with Smarta.com.

She has withdrawn from Brightstation Ventures, the digital media seed capital business she set up with Dan Wagner, to concentrate fully on Smarta.

Her big success was selling MyKindaPlace, the teenage online magazine and social networking site she founded in 2000, to fellow shareholder BSkyB for several million in 2006.

But she hasn't had things all her own way. It was a case of bad timing when she joined Deckchair.com, Bob Geldof's ill-fated travel site, and questionable judgement when she walked away from the MD job Bebo.com not long before it was sold to AOL for $850m in 2008.

Click on the article above to read my New Media Age profile of her.
  

It's not just cricket...

The internet was a godsend for stat-loving cricket fans, and Cricinfo brilliantly exploited the sport's global appeal, rapidly becoming the world largest cricket website under the auspices of Wisden.

Former Cricinfo CEO Tom Gleeson (pictured), a likeable and ubane Zimbabwean with a real passion for the game, oversaw much of the website's impressive growth.

But then Wisden sold it to ESPN, the Disney-owned sports network, for around £30m in 2007 and one can't help feeling that the site lost some of its amateur charm in the process. A business that grew out of love and enthusiasm for the game has now become just another feather in the cap of a global broadcaster and publisher. Whilst interviewing Gleeson (now VP digital media for ESPN's non-US division) for a New Media Age profile I got a sense of that wistful nostalgia for Cricinfo's early days, although he was far too professional to admit it openly, especially in front of his PR minders.

It wouldn't surprise me if Gleeson headed off for pastures new before too long. 

Going for broker

The online sharedealing market has always been hyper-competitive in the UK . Flat rate fees have become the norm and some brokers even offer free dealing from time to time. But without the trade volumes enjoyed by the US brokerage sector, UK brokers were always prey to wafer thin margins. And so Hoodless Brennan's withdrawal from the retail online dealing market comes as little surprise. Sub-£10 dealing fees eventually became unsustainable in a consolidating market where deep pockets and strong brands are a must for survival.

Read my Interactive Investor feature "What is the future for online stockbrokers?" for an analysis of the sector.