My thoughts on “Youth and the News” circa 2006
In early 2006 I was kindly asked by the Canadian Media Research Consortium to give the opening talk at their Youth and the News conference. At the time I was editor at Dose.
My talk went down about as comfortably as an, um... enema with the mostly older crowd of publishers, news directors and other execs (I had some support from the students). Anyway, obviously a heck of a lot has changed in media and technology since April 2006 but it's fun to look back. I hope you get something out of the slides, even if it's just a laugh.
The new NationalPost.com – two months in
Two months back I wrote about the relaunch of nationalpost.com. I think it was a huge improvement and it seems, from the numbers, like people agree.
There is still some work to do Vs their main competition (for newspaper websites anyway) but things are headed in the right direction.
Cautionary note: This chart is from Alexa - it's probably a good indication of trends but actual numbers could be way off.
Breaking news: Totally redesigned NationalPost.com launches today
Friends of mine have been working on relaunching NationalPost.com for months and today we get our first look at the new site.
Feature are still being rolled out as I type but I'm certainly encouraged by what I've seen so far. The site has completely removed the pay wall and we now have access to all of their content without registration. They have also moved to a new, wider format used by newspaper sites like the New York Times.
I'm looking forward to having a good look around over the next week but so far I'm impressed, and very proud of all of my friends at the Post.
Doug Kelly, the editor-in-chief, introduces the new site here.
Marketing democracy on YouTube
Having spent 7 years working in advertising agencies I can attest to the fact that the ad business has a pretty warped concept of what the 'truth' is. Agencies don't often lie, they just choose to focus on points that mislead people about the products they are selling. Of course good advertising (the kind that I produced ;)) never bullshits anyone, but unfortunately good advertising is not the majority of what gets produced.
I have always been a big fan of work from citizens or groups that aim to talk back to brands in public spaces and attempt to set the record straight. Adbusters call it subvertising, but usually it just involves someone climbing up on a billboard and changing the text or image on an ad to make a statement.
Unfortunately changing a billboard takes a lot of effort and the threat of going to jail or getting a hefty fine puts people off.
One way I'm increasingly seeing people talking back to brands is on YouTube. Lately I've noticed more people using advertising spoofs, which have been going on for a long time, to make statements and sometimes present some truth about what is being advertised in the original ad. Subvertising on YouTube is less work than a billboard, less dangerous and if you do a good job you have the opportunity to reach many more people.
Here is a simple example of an ad for an energy company in New Zealand being jammed with some 'truth'.
The original ad:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw8QJWdC650]
The 'fixed' ad:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i12qJ-Nejgk]
Torontoist
Marc Lostracco from Torontoist tracked me down this week to answer some questions about the Dose covers. I thought their interest was a nice compliment for the whole Dose team, and in particular the extremely talented art department. Talking about the covers brought back some nice memories.
The story is here and if you're in the mood you can digg it here.
George Lois and Esquire magazine
When I worked at Dose I found the Esquire magazine covers created by the legendary George Lois in the sixties a big inspiration. They were original, thought provoking and gutsy. I was doing some research today and found that George has a fancy new site that showcases the covers nicely. You can check them all out if you like but here are a few of my favorites:
Avoiding the hype cycle
Startups and hype seem to go together like women in Vancouver and yoga pants - they're inseparable.
Women might need pants, but my question is do startups really need tech hype? Do they always benefit from it?
Valleywag re-posted their hype cycle chart today...
This kind of technology hype is obviously important for companies targeting the web2.0 crowd. It will make or break brands like twitter, Joost and Justin.tv. But for companies with a different target why not stick to the tried and tested model: identify your audience and approach them with a compelling proposition and a solid product.
Sometimes I think startups are too quick to target the tech media, hoping for coverage and, well, hype. Maybe they think this is the only way? The classic marketer in me would ask: If your target audience isn't reading TechCrunch then why do you need a story from them so badly? Do you really need all of the visitors that will come from an appearance on the front page of Digg if they're not the type of customer that will stick around and make your business a success?
Of course all businesses have several target audiences, and one that IS reading the tech media are investors. So maybe my point is that there is a time for tech hype - and that some startups can get ahead of themselves. Let's see if I still agree with that in 9 months when I have been through a bit of a hype cycle myself ;).
270 Dose magazine covers
Before GigPark I was lucky enough to be part of Dose, as the founding editor-in-chief. Helping to build, launch and run this Canadian media company was one of the most exciting projects I have ever been involved in. The team were incredible and CanWest gave us a lot of freedom to have fun and build a good product.
Here are a few stats about Dose:
Magazine, website and mobile platform launched on April 4th 2005
Approximately 70 staff bassed in Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver
By May 2006 we had:
> 331K daily readers of our magazine
> One-in-ten 18-24 year olds read the magazine daily
> 200K monthly unique visitors to dose.ca
> 76% brand awareness amongst 18-34 year olds
Dose was closed on May 17th 2006
One of my favorite jobs at Dose was helping create the cover each day. We would come up with a few ideas in the morning news meeting and then at noon would huddle up and answer the following questions:
- What subject are people talking about or could they be talking about today?
- What is the one simple idea we want to communicate about this subject?
- How can we express the idea in the most simple, powerful way?
Our creative director, deputy editors and culture editor were always at the noon meeting along with one guest contributor. Sometimes the meetings were a fun 15 minutes, and sometimes they were a difficult hour, but the results were something we were proud of more often than not. Maybe the most amazing thing was the fact that after the meeting the designers, editors, photographers and illustrators had only 7 short hours to execute the idea and create the cover.
Every single member of the Dose staff contributed to our covers, but these people were instrumental:
Jaspal Riyait, Creative Director
Duncan Clark, Deputy Editor
Ryan MacDonald, Deputy Editor
Basem Boshra, Deputy Editor
Ronit Novak, Photo Editor
Jordan MacInnis, Photo Editor
Celine Wong, Culture Editor
Teena Aujla, Associate Art Director
Daniel DeSouza, Designer
Here are a few of my favorite Dose covers. Click on them to view the full flickr set:
(I promise to put all 270 of them on flickr when I find the time)
Tickets for the Mesh conference went on sale this morning
This was a fantastic event last year and from the list of confirmed speakers it looks like 2007 won't disappoint. There is a lot of buzz and limited tickets so register early.
Check out the Mesh blog for new speaker announcements over the next few weeks.
Thanks for lunch eBay
I was lucky enough to go to an eBay Canada event today to meet Jeffery Cole from the Center for the Digital Future. Jeff spoke about the research he is doing on the social, cultural and media implications of internet usage and showed slides from his 2007 Digital Future Report.
He mentioned all of the points you'd expect in a presentation about internet usage:
Growth of user generated content:
Significance of social networks:
The Internet influencing politics:
I asked if he thought we would see the same culture of star political bloggers in the 2008 presidential campaign or if he thought we might see something more widespread and grassroots. He talked about politicians needing to be more careful of what they say (i.e. citizen journalists are everywhere) but I'm not sure he answered my question.
I thought the two most interesting points he made were the most basic.
- The 'always on' culture of broadband is changing how we use the web: We don't log in now - we are constantly logged in. In fact, logging out now takes more of an effort. This completely changes our relationship with the digital tools around us.
- Internet penetration is at 100% of those willing: His point was that today not having the internet at home requires more of a decision than having it. Penetration in the US and Canada still isn't at 100% but it's not because people have been slow to adopt, it's because they are making a conscious decision to keep the web out of their homes.
About Pema Hegan
A Kiwi living in Canada.
I love music, obsess over architecture, ride my bike most days and miss the ocean.
I'm a partner and managing director at Rethink Toronto.
Before that I founded and then sold GigPark, a social web startup. And before that I was the founding editor-in-chief of the Canadian media company, Dose.
Find me here
pema.hegan (at) gmail (dot) com
- @malbonster Don't laugh too loud. I remember Boys being some of the best Thai food in the city. http://twitter.com/pema
- @ryanfeeley No. But wow - that looks interesting! Next time ;). http://twitter.com/pema
- @ebonical Next time we just need to time our trips so we can enjoy some if it together!! http://twitter.com/pema
Archives
Toronto tech community
- Bryce Johnson
- David Crow
- Founders Lunch
- Global Nerdy
- Greg Wilson
- Jay Goldman
- Jevon MacDonald
- Malgosia & John Philip Green
- Mark Dowds
- Mark Evans
- Mark Kuznicki
- Mathew Ingram
- Rick Segal
- Rob Hyndman
- StartupNorth
- Suzie Dingwall Williams
- Tom Purves
- Will Pate
- WirelessNorth
Flickr
