Whose opinion matters?

By Tom Mattey – Graphics Specialist, Echo Research

Does anyone know how the Times is faring with its paywall? I am genuinely interested to see if the concept of paying for online news is a success. My initial reaction to the idea was one of scepticism. From my point of view, if I want to be updated and gather news then I have an infinite number of free websites available to me, each with various political stances, the emphasis of a story presented from different angles and with varying objectives on what the writer intends to lead his readers to consider. So why would I pay for a single viewpoint?

This attitude of wanting a range of sources is not born of any scholarly conviction, but because (as I previously pointed out) I am a sceptic. I don’t quite believe the account of a single person, especially one of a journalist whose motivation for delivering information to me may be profit by sensationalism. I prefer multiple accounts of an event because I think that by taking the consistencies in a given story across several reports, one can gain some idea of what really happened.

A world away from the Times’ website is another form of news delivery that I listened to on a drive home from work recently, Radio 1’s news programme, Newsbeat, which is made for a younger demographic than the Times, and as a result could be accused of ‘dumbing down’ its reports to make them more accessible for a younger generation. What is interesting about the reports is what happens after the story has been outlined and the time comes to analyse it.

Newsbeat’s method is to ask random people on the street what their opinion is. The report will be delivered by the reporter, as you’d expect. But then the Newsbeat listener is subjected to a stream of often un-informed and frequently irrelevant opinion. And that is the end of the report. Nothing explained, no information gathered whatsoever.

This problem is starting to spread and many news websites now simply report some of the facts of the story and then allow readers to comment in place of expert opinion. It is that expert opinion that I think we would miss most if the death of the newspaper ever occurred.

Some have speculated that the huge growth of social media and the internet has given birth to and raised a universal belief in the west that every person’s opinion is important. This seems to me to be a misunderstanding of freedom of speech, inflamed by popular culture and some countries’ insistence on overusing the word ‘freedom’ (usually while oppressing goat farmers somewhere near an oil well). While everyone is (for the most part) entitled to their opinion and the means to voice it without fear of reprisal, I don’t agree that everyone’s opinion is important. My opinion on medicine for example is of no importance whatsoever compared to that of a trained doctor, and it is the same in every other field (and no, the irony of talking about importance of opinions on a blog isn’t lost on me).

I can see some truth in the Times’ argument. Experts cost money. Modern news reporting requires resources and personnel on a global scale and I’m really not sure if the advertising revenue of a website that size would be enough to sustain top quality reporting and research. Simply put, if we don’t want to pay, we won’t get such a high level of insight and explanation of complex stories.

Whatever form we take our news in these days, there is no underestimating the huge power it holds. The media can bring down governments, get laws and constitutions changed, ruin or build business empires and start revolutions. And so now, when that hugely important story comes up, one that will affect a decision you will have to make as a voter, or as a consumer, a parent or as a citizen of a nation, would you rather it be delivered in a carefully explained format, dissected by experts so you can better understand all the relevant aspects, or would you rather just hear the ill-informed random ranting of a reader?

The opinions and views expressed in this blog are the personal opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Echo Research, its staff or any of its affiliates.

Walls

By Nigel Middlemiss, Knowledge Director, Echo Research

This week, The Economist writes about the Internet and “walls”. It criticises the growth of exclusive communities as unfriendly to unrestrained commerce. These are so clearly at odds with the magazine’s well-known free-market, no-holds-barred views on competition.

One wall it talks about is the one that nations put up. The Economist suggests China should lower its “great firewall” against the internet, and let in liberal opinion. Greater openness would nourish the ideas of Chinese scientists. A thousand innovations would bloom and bring in billions of renminbi. Only …. I’m sorry to say to say this is a wistful dream. China’s wealth generation has come about partly because employee incomes can be so tightly contained; dictatorship is part of its commercial success. The free flow of ideas would loosen and eventually wrench away the levers of power from The Party – unthinkable to them.

What would have been fascinating would be to hear the Economist’s thoughts on another kind of wall: the “paywall” that News International has thrown up round the online Times and others in the NI stable. Some estimates are that reader traffic has dropped off there by an astonishing 80-90% since June. Correspondingly, advertising is said to have slumped as readership reach has dwindled. Some of the alleged economics look even more worrisome for the Murdoch dynasty: £1.4m a year extra from online subscribers, compared with an annual loss from all NI titles of £490m, looks a drop in the ocean.

But despite the decline in hard-copy newspapers, people are as news-savvy, as well-informed, and as well- entertained by media of one kind or another as ever they were. People are still being influenced by the media, but the media have become diffuse and multiple, and the trick is understand exactly which media count, and when, where, and how they exercise their subtle but persuasive influence.

The opinions and views expressed in this blog are the personal opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Echo Research, its staff or any of its affiliates.

Toyota: A Firsthand Account

By Nigel Middlemiss, Knowledge Director, Echo Research

Not long ago we (my wife Prisca and I) bought a Toyota Prius, the “3rd Generation” model, which had just come on to the market. But within a month, the “Gen 3” Priuses had been recalled by Toyota because the brake pedal “felt strange” when the anti-skid system (ABS) operated.

I realised with mild surprise that we’d become what in my day job are known as “stakeholders“, enmeshed in a “product crisis”. I decided to note how it developed in case there were any passing insights into brand reputations.

So how did Toyota do?

Well, first of all, this particular stakeholder was slightly resentful that he had to schlepp out to a West London dealership to have a software patch loaded to stop the alleged “strange feeling” of the brakes.

More seriously, pride in the shiny new possession was dented by Toyota’s reputational hit. I almost felt as if we’d rented a charming country cottage and woken next morning to find a motorway at the bottom of the garden. Because of the recall, there were far fewer conversations than I’d have liked about the things that had made the Prius the Green Car of the Year 2009 in the US, or the City Car of the Year 2009 in the UK.

A third, insidious, effect was that, when I looked at web forums about the Prius, once people had seen one tiny bit of the reputation crumble, they piled in en masse to demolish other bits. “Apparently the fuel consumption isn’t as good as a manual diesel”, “Apparently the boot’s too small to be any use because of the huge electric motor”, and so on. A sort of crowd fever set in.

A month or so went by, and the Prius story began to fade in the media. And then, strangely, now that the reputational tsunami had calmed, we started to take a fresh look. A blog about Toyotas I read put it in perspective: in the last 15 years there’ve been seven recalls of Audis, 12 for BMWs, six for Bentleys and 16 for that byword for reliability the VW. Meanwhile, in March In the US, where concerns had been strongest, Toyota reported 20 per cent year-on-year sales growth for Priuses.

We began to notice again some of the virtues we’d bought it for. Here again were the convenience and comfort of the feather-light controls, the drive-by-wire systems that turn the gearshift into an electronic console, the ease of reversing guided by video cameras, the facility to have the vehicle parked for you in the tightest space with a radar-based system that spins the steering wheel (while you take your hands off), another radar controller that keeps you a safe distance from the car ahead, and, not least, very low petrol consumption, especially now unleaded had climbed to 120p a litre. And because of the low exhaust pollution, no road tax and no London congestion charge. Its deeper virtues were surfacing again.

The worst of it, I realised, looking back, had been the negative ‘peer pressure’. It had been – still is, of course, till Toyota’s reputation fully reasserts itself - a case of “You’ve nothing to fear from the loss of reputation but fear itself”. Other people’s take on it had clouded the reality in my mind – not of course, that it had been a risk-free occurrence, but that it was one among many, which most car brands encounter, that it could be rectified, and that it would eventually be history.

So I’m no longer a stakeholder with product issues, and I much prefer it that way.

The opinions and views expressed in this blog are the personal opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Echo Research, its staff or any of its affiliates.

Welcome to Apple’s world

By Tom Mattey – Graphics Specialist, Echo Research Ltd.

I have had a chance to play with Apple’s new iPad and I can report that it is stunning to look at and works very gracefully. I have to tip my cap to the Apple software engineers; the operating system is a work of digital art.

The iPad has been pitched by the digital world’s new ‘Messiah’, Apple CEO Steve Jobs as ‘filling the gap between the smart phone and the laptop’. As an avid tech user, I am still struggling to tell if this gap actually exists and if it did, why the netbook class of laptops does not fill that same void?

Ignoring attributes such as aesthetics or ‘cool factor’, when compared to a netbook, the netbook equals or beats the iPad hands down in every department except the quality of the screen. The netbook can run most standard Windows software. I can plug a USB pen into it, swap the battery, change the operating system, I have complete control over what I want to install or do on it.

As you can tell, I am still on the fence with the iPad, but not for the reasons you may think, it’s not to do with their price, their limited capabilities, or the hidden, murky world of 3G contracts you must enter to use a 3G model or even a practical standpoint because I have no use for it, (I have constantly been guilty of buying gadgets because they are desirable when in fact I have no practical use for them).

My reasons are very simply to do with freedom.

This is the issue I have with Apple. I like a lot of its products, the iPhone is an exceptional device, but I don’t like the fact that once I’ve bought it, I am also buying into Apple’s world and to leave I must use another device. I don’t like that I can only use an Apple cable and iTunes to copy material onto my phone, I don’t like that I can’t ever use a different OS or app not approved and sanitised by Apple. Apple is also now dictating what the future of the internet will be and hinting at a censorship model for material it deems unsavoury. These are basic freedoms and choices that pioneered the internet and indeed Apple in its early days. For my computer use which occupies a large part of my time at work and at home, I am not prepared to sacrifice these freedoms.

I am however eagerly waiting to see what the launch of the iPad will mean for Apple’s reputation. One of the iPad’s big selling points is its book and newspaper reader ability. Apple is hoping to sell it to the modern western professional to read his or her newspaper on while commuting.

Apple has identified the increasingly talked about demise of the newspaper and is offering these sinking ships a life raft by trying to establish a device capable of delivering digital newspapers to the masses. Some rumours talk about Apple looking to sign exclusive deals with newspapers to deliver via the iPad and now speculation is growing as what Apple’s objective would be if it did this. Does Steve Jobs see himself as the next Rupert Murdoch?

Apple has seduced the mainstream market. The mainstream view of Apple is generally favourable as it has introduced a whole new demographic to the virtual world of the internet with a range of easy to use, stylish gadgets. However there is an undercurrent of increasing alienation and anger from professional digital users who see a company built on a reputation of open source, trust and transparency become corrupted by its recent success and using increasingly unsavoury tactics to its competitors such as Adobe. A lot of people see the perceived motivation of the company swing from open sourced innovation to profit driven greed. For those that saw Apple as a David fighting against the Goliath of Microsoft, it’s sad to see it win the battle only to fall prey to the same trappings as Microsoft did.

In his defence, Steve Jobs does not shy from these allegations; he is very clear about his mission and mandate and is happy to defend it to anyone (link to http://gawker.com/5539717/).

So will the iPad be a success? I suspect it will sell very well at first but quickly fall away or be replaced by Apple’s next offering but I hope the world is not seduced by these shiny toys if it means sacrificing something much more valuable.

The opinions and views expressed in this blog are the personal opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Echo Research, its staff or any of its affiliates.

The Future of News

By Nigel Middlemiss, Knowledge Director, Echo Research

The future of news is up for debate. Nobody really knows what will happen to newspapers as online storms ahead

Some say “the economics of free” – giveaways like the Metro, free websites like the Guardian - is causing carnage among UK journalists, with 2,000 lost through dwindling circulation and title closures in the last year. There are fears that journalism will become a hyphenated profession; because there is not enough money in newspapers alone, journalist-lawyers and journalist-lecturers etc will be the only ones to make ends meet.

Others say the evidence tends the opposite way: people will always pay for great content. A million subscribers pay for the Wall Street Journal online, and four million for The Economist. Paid-for TV like Sky is growing while free-to-air TV is in decline. Some newspapers are only failing because, in the US certainly, they were lazy big town monopolies.

What is sure is that the channels or carriers of news are on the move; 26 new e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle are coming to market this year and they will overtake, some predictions say, iPads and laptops as convenient readers, and replace the physical bulk, transportation demands and chemical damage of newspapers.

Clearly there’s no going back on Web 2.0 and its news successes. There are now heavily trafficked sites that take the best of freelance contributions from around the globe to create a newswire service. Patch.com in the US is a typical platform for people to tell stories citizen-to-citizen, unfettered and free, and so is wikileaks.com which aggregates leaks that “the Establishment” don’t want you to know about. Blogs influence geo-politics as they issue pleas to the world from inside repressive regimes like Iran. There are Egyptian bloggers who collect allegations of torture and challenge their Government with it, for example.

Perhaps the most convincing take on who will win the blog vs. news media debate is: nobody will. Certainly social media give us more access to unmediated news. But nobody ever knows where the journey will end; almost everyone gets it wrong. Some said when the car was invented that the train would end, when traffic started to gridlock that flying cars would be invented to overcome congestion.

But news values will survive transmission changes, as they have in transit through ink and paper to film, to TV, to computers. The medium is not really key; the message is. What matters is what’s happening in the world; that is what people want to be sure has been reliably aggregated and is being powerfully presented through sharp writing, great pictures, clever graphics, wide coverage. You have to trust the output: and for that you need an editor, a fact-checker, an accountable individual, which means trained journalists. The demand side not the supply side will determine news. Publishing, in whatever form, will remain.

As to the “economics of free”, Rupert Murdoch has now declared war on aggregators like Google. This month he started putting News International coverage behind a ‘paywall’. Will his general interest papers be able to mimic the model of financial journalism like the FT, Economist, WSJ? Watch this space.

The opinions and views expressed in this blog are the personal opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Echo Research, its staff or any of its affiliates.

Facebook and Privacy: Reputations at Stake

By Kristen Avery - Project Co-ordinator, Echo Research Inc.

Facebook has recently faced scrutiny over changes to its privacy settings, creating a unique situation where both the social network and its users’ reputations are at stake. As a Facebook user for nearly 6 years (a scary thought!), I have watched the site evolve from a closeknit college network to an all-out global “phenomenon.” These gradual changes over the years have emphasized the openness of Facebook, but often at the expense of privacy. The convoluted settings that are currently in place are enough to confuse even a veteran Facebook user. I found out that my “Likes and Interests” were automatically exposed to everyone after a recent Privacy Policy change, even thought I previously set that feature to “Friends Only.” One website has pounced on the controversial policy, publishing every public Facebook status to expose the site’s misleading and complex privacy settings. Anyone on the internet can search through status updates for embarrassing details. Information that users thought were only viewable by friends is exposed to the greater public, possibly putting their reputation and other private information at risk.

Facebook needs to address these privacy concerns and listen to its stakeholders in order to restore their reputation while users should be vigilant about Privacy Policy updates. Yesterday, Facebook announced a rollback to simpler privacy controls, which will hopefully put users’ best interests first and restore the site’s image.

To see just how complex Facebook’s privacy settings are at the moment, take a look at this useful infographic from The New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/12/business/facebook-privacy.html

The opinions and views expressed in this blog are the personal opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Echo Research, its staff or any of its affiliates.

Picture Perfect

By Nigel Middlemiss, Knowledge Director, Echo Research

One great thing that readers of the online and offline press can enjoy which Web 2.0 and broadcast consumers don't have is cartoons. They're a killer app when it comes to dismantling a reputation with a few scornful brushstrokes. And elections are happy days for cartoonists as some of their favourite targets, politicians, climb onstage. Thursday's 3-way TV debate produced a crop of sharp drawings underlining the distrust the political class tends to inspire currently across the board.

The Independent had all three leaders standing at their podiums, Clegg with a long wooden Pinocchio-style nose, Cameron with an equally long forked tongue, and Brown with his pants seriously on fire. The Times had a similar take, as in Peter Brookes' cartoon (reproduced here with Peter's permission).

Peter Brookes, The Times

The Guardian was less cynical. The paper that started life as a Liberal broadsheet showed Nick Clegg as a hero mouse wielding a massive executioner's axe, and Brown and Cameron as two medieval villains trembling in their boots.

No matter what your political stance (or state of progress in coming to one), I think you’ll find clever encapsulations of campaign moments to be found in the next 3 weeks at:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/cartoon/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/fun-games/cartoons/

The opinions and views expressed in this blog are the personal opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Echo Research, its staff or any of its affiliates.