timesopen keynote: technology and the future of the newspaper

Technology and the future of the newspaper

Tim O’Reilly

O’Reilly Media, Inc.www.oreilly.com

NY Times TimesOpenFebruary 20, 2009

Thursday, February 19, 2009

How many of you have O’Reilly books?


What We Really Do At O'Reilly

Change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators


Some Examples

• First books on Linux and Perl - 1991• First book on the internet, covered WWW when there were only 200 web sites - 1992

• Launched first commercial web site, 1993• First advocacy about web services - 1997• Organized meeting where term “open source” was adopted - 1998

• Coined term Web 2.0 to describe rules for new internet platform - 2004

• Make: celebrates the new DIY - 2006• Now working on “Government 2.0”


How we do it

•Find interesting technologies and people innovating from the edge

•Amplify their effectiveness by spreading the information needed for others to follow them.

•Books


How we do it



•Books, Conferences


How we do it



•Books, Conferences, Online


"The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."

--William Gibson


NYT Research Labs


Five Futures That Are Changing Newspapers

Tim O’Reilly

O’Reilly Media, Inc.www.oreilly.com

NY Times TimesOpenFebruary 20, 2009


1. “Harnessing Collective Intelligence”


as is wikipedia


Digg is an obvious example of crowdsourcing


But Google teaches us something deeper


Consider pagerank


Web 2.0 is about finding meaning in user-generated data,

and turning that meaning into real-time user-facing services


Wesabe does this with its tips


comparing two merchants based on credit card data


Real-time is critical.


Google, Walmart & mybarackobama.com - Obama’s


Is there a newspaper equivalent to Project Houdini?

Don’t show it to me again.


The network as platform means that competitive advantage goes to systems that harness network effects to get better the more people use them.


Questions for newspapers

• What assets do you have that increase in value through participation?

– Knowledge about your readers?– Knowledge from your readers?– Your brand as it is spread by others?– Your accumulated history?

• What assets do you have that benefit from the real time nature of online information?

• How do you involve your readers in increasing the value of what you do?

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2. Social Networking


social network graph of congressional twitterers


my facebook news feed


my twitter input feed


my twitter output feed


retweetradar


nivi and the @timoreilly bump


NyTimes twitter feed for contrast


This is important!

• In social networks, you gain and bestow status through those you associate with

• A key function of a publishing brand is the bestowal of status by what you pay attention to

• If you only pay attention to yourself, you aren’t as valuable to your community

– You don’t learn as much from your readers– You don’t bind them to you by amplifying their

voice


NY Times letters to the editor


Times People - it’s a ghost town for me


Now imagine if my twitter or facebook friends were there

• A key question for all of us is when to lead, and when to follow


NY Times most popular articles


But take a closer look at how Digg involves its readers and gives them


Opportunities?

• All those people who emailed stories probably commented in their email. Invite them to share?

• Does this make them more valuable to advertisers?

• Most blogged? Where are the links? • Most mailed ≠ most blogged• If I’ve already read it, I might want to “digg” it, twitter it, tag it in del.icio.us? Too geeky for most readers? Add configuration to my subscription


NY Times comments - a lot of comments - too many to read and


Markmail, a tool for mailing lists, could be useful?


markmail identifies the most frequent posters on a topic


NY Times comment API


3. Programming as Journalism


USAspending.gov

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Stimuluswatch.org


Instedd


Global Virus Forecasting Initiative


Adrian Holovaty at LJWorld.com - creating a context for people to share

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chicagocrime.org & database driven local news

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everyblock.com


outside.in


The shakeshack and how users are instrumenting it with twitter

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Hyper-local is just the beginning

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Instrumenting the World

We are moving out of the world in which people typing on keyboards will drive collective intelligence applications. Increasingly, applications are driven by new kinds of sensors.


how good collective sensor data is getting - flickr geotagged photos

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The smart phone plus local search. Today pizza, tomorrow news?


4. The Internet As Platform


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Two Types of Platform• One Ring to Rule Them All

• Small Pieces Loosely Joined


Let’s start with the web itself

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A NY Times web page that only links to itself


A well formed blog that is part of the “small pieces loosely joined” world


We screwed up too - Safari books online


In porting over old media, we forgot the links


Oops!


new tools like apture let you keep people on your site while also giving


More apture


Now let’s move on to web services

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Now let’s take this to APIs. Google Maps king of the hill, per


housingmaps.com - the very first Google maps mashup• It was a “hack.” Google learned from it, quickly, and turned it into a supported feature


Apple brings geotagging to iPhoto via Gmaps


But look - people can also PUT data on google. Museum layer on Google


Google maps as a model

• Mashups were invented by users - the API came later to support them

• It’s open• It’s two-way: innovations outside Google can be brought onto Google


If you’re really building a platform, your customers and partners build new features before you do


Twitter hashtags and news - both hashtags and the real time search


Stocktwits


tweetdeck


peoplebrowsr


Why I like the twhirl client


Ginx has some interesting new features


bit.ly as a twitter client

• How about offering this kind of thing from the NYT?


bit.ly and the power of instant tracking


bit.ly-twitter integration


my facebook news feed


Lessons from Twitter

• Do one thing and do it well• Let others build on what you do, even if it appears to compete with you

• When users innovate, support their behaviors in your platform (@, #, $)

• “Insert and extend” :-)


5. Asymmetric Competition


Top sites on the internet, 2005

Rank Company # Employees

1 Yahoo 9,000 2 TimeWarner 85,0003 Microsoft 61,0004 Google 5,0005 eBay 11,0006 News Corp 38,000

7 Craigslist 188 Disney 129,0009 BBC 60,000

10 IAC 26,000


NY Times vs Washpost & huffpost on compete


nytimes.com vs digg on compete


Voiceofsandiego.org

• Some people say that the answer is for investigative journalism to become a non-profit activity


micropayments


You pick the hat to fit the head


What Job Does a Newspaper Do?

•http://cache.gettyimages.com/xc/3376845.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=89B856506CE5465432B9C151F29BA0CBA55A1E4F32AD3138


What Job Does a Newspaper Do?

• “All the News That’s Fit to Print”• Serious Investigative Reporting• Connection to local community• Driving attention to what’s important• Curation and bestowal of status• Entertainment• ...

• There may be different answers for each of these jobs


Taking a Road Trip

• http://autos.canada.com/greatcanadianroadtrip/index.html


http://autos.canada.com/greatcanadianroadtrip/index.html

http://autos.canada.com/greatcanadianroadtrip/index.html

It’s not a tour of gas stations!


This might be where you end up

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/06/12/opinion/0613-GASPUMPS_index.html




People need what newspapers do

• You are members of a great profession• Billions of people are coming online, waiting to be taught, informed, entertained

• “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”*

*Alan Kay


For More Information

• What is Web 2.0? http://www.oreillynet.com/go/web2 • http://tim.oreilly.com• http://radar.oreilly.com

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http://www.oreillynet.com/go/web2

http://www.oreillynet.com/go/web2

http://tim.oreilly.com

http://tim.oreilly.com

http://radar.oreilly.com

http://radar.oreilly.com

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