Monday, December 30, 2013
Facebook still leads social media, but sees slower growth among young users
Facebook still leads social media, but sees slower growth among young users
By Hayley Tsukayama, Updated: Monday, December 30, 12:02 PM E-mail the writer
This is not your father’s Facebook. It’s your grandfather’s.
New data from the Pew Center for Internet and American Life released Monday show that Facebook’s strongest growth over the past year has come from users over the age of 65, as more older users sign onto the site to keep in touch with their friends, children and grandchildren.
The survey found that 45 percent of American seniors who use the Internet are on Facebook, up from 35 percent the previous year.
Use among teens, however, has stagnated at 84 percent. That’s in keeping with growing concern that Facebook is seeing lower engagement with the younger users that drove its early popularity, something that the company has acknowledged itself in an earnings call this year.
Facebook may be a victim of its own success after nearly ten years as the country’s leading social network, said Pew senior researcher Aaron Smith.
“It’s hard to get more than 85 percent of anyone doing anything,” he said. “A lot of the easy converts in the younger group, or even in the older and middle-aged group, are already on the site. The senior group is the only area that has any substantial area for growth.”
Facebook is seeing an uptick in teen use on Instagram, which it bought for $1 billion in 2012, indicating that it’s far from being down for the count.
Still, a stagnating teen audience — the percentage of those in the 18-29 age group that use the site felltwo percentage points compared with ast year — fits in with a recent study from researchers at University College London, which found some British teens at are leaving Facebook because of the influx of older users.
An ethnographic study of 16-18 year olds north of London found teens are opting to use private messaging services such as WhatsApp and Snapchat to communicate with their friends. In many cases, the study said, teens stay on Facebook at the behest of their parents, who have made it a tool for keeping track of their children.
“You just can’t be young and free if you know your parents can access your every indiscretion,” wrote Daniel Miller, a professor of Material Culture at UCL, who ran the study.
In other words, teens are using Facebook, but not for the same reasons that they once did. And that, Smith said, fits in with a larger trend in the social media space: Americans are diversifying the social networks that they use.
More than 40 percent of Americans, Pew found, maintain multiple social network accounts for different purposes.
Facebook, which has more than 1 billion users and is used by 71 percent of Americans, seems to be the “default” social network, he said, while Pinterest skews more heavily to women, LinkedIn to more educated or wealthier users and Twitter among young adults and African Americans.
“People are pretty utilitarian,” Smith said. “This fits really well with a lot of the research we’ve seen in terms of how people navigate all of these things.”
Users go to specific places based on what they’re trying to do, Smith said, and so engagement for many of the smaller sites are on par with Facebook, Smith noted. Fifty-seven percent of Instagram users, for example, return daily to the site to check for updates, compared to 63 percent of Facebook users. Nearly half of Twitter’s users, 46 percent, also make the site a daily habit.
Pew researchers surveyed 1,800 adults in English and Spanish via landline and cellphone for the study. The survey was conducted in August and September.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Number of Magazine Closures Falls Significantly This Year
From MediaPost.com:
Number Of Magazine Closures Falls Significantly This Year
Folio, Thursday, December 19, 2013 3:32 PM
Good news in magazine statistics for 2013: "Just 56 titles shuttered in 2013, down more than 30 percent from the prior year and [down more than] 60 percent from 2011," writes Michael Rondon. However, there were fewer launches than in 2011 -- only 185, down 18%. These numbers came from a year-end report by MediaFinder.
Number Of Magazine Closures Falls Significantly This Year
Folio, Thursday, December 19, 2013 3:32 PM
Good news in magazine statistics for 2013: "Just 56 titles shuttered in 2013, down more than 30 percent from the prior year and [down more than] 60 percent from 2011," writes Michael Rondon. However, there were fewer launches than in 2011 -- only 185, down 18%. These numbers came from a year-end report by MediaFinder.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
About That Obama Selfie at Mandela's Funeral . . .
Editor's note: David Burnett is an award winning photojournalist and co-founder of the Contact Press Images agency.
(CNN) -- When photography first became a method to document events, both large and small, more than a century ago, there was a certain understanding that what one was seeing in a picture was more or less what happened.
The ability to use photography to recount life in a visual way and replicate it in the mass media allowed people around the world to see and understand things they may only have imagined before. The "truth" of photography, embodied by the phrase "the camera doesn't lie," was something that came to be generally accepted. Yet the camera, like most tools used by people, is more than capable of lying if used in the wrong way.
A picture is simply a moment, and although we might think we can divine what it is we are looking at, there are times when a visual representation of life is simply neither the whole truth, nor nothing but the truth.
Increasingly, with the ubiquitous arrival of smartphones, what matters most is simply that someone, not necessarily a trained professional, was able to take a photograph by the simple fact that he or she was present. According to an old press photography saw, when a long-time pro was asked how he made a picture, he replied "f/8, and be there," capturing the essence of what news photography is really about. It is the ability to witness, and capture, a moment in time. Does it always tell the "truth?" That is a good question, since what we define as truth can sometimes have many meanings.
If a picture is meant to be the sole, definitive description of what happened, and no one else is around to see, then to a certain degree, we might have to accept its veracity. But the ever-increasing presence of cameras, both traditional and camera phones, has added a new dimension to what we see. And with the invention and perfection of Photoshop and other photo editing software, it has become much easier to add to, take away from, or alter an image to change its very nature. Can the camera lie? Not sure. Can photographers or editors lie? Most assuredly, if they are of a mind to.
The photograph of President Obama taking a "selfie" with the British and Danish prime ministers is a case in point. Many news organizations and social media platforms jumped on the bandwagon to showcase the photographs where Michelle Obama is looking away, with what could be considered an angry expression. Yet those pictures may not necessarily tell the whole story.
Obama selfie controversy is not new
The AFP photographer who took the photos wrote a blog describing how surprised he was at the reaction to them. And though he released no photos showing the first lady looking more light-hearted, he says, the glum look in the published pictures was simply a moment "captured by chance."
A photojournalist covering an event will take dozens, sometimes hundreds, of pictures in the process. For large-scale events -- the Olympics, political conventions -- often the photographer doesn't even get to edit his own pictures, that job being handed off to an editor. In the digital, WiFi, connected age, this becomes the efficient way of getting work processed and out into the real world. In the end, as viewers, we have to try to sift through not only what we are seeing, but try to understand what we are not seeing.
The growth of social media and the concept of so-called "citizen-journalists," has created a real quandary for the older forms of media and news delivery. Most professional journalists, both photographers and writers, try to adhere to a code of fairness and objectivity.
In the United States, it's only in the last generation that politically charged, partisan reporting has started to become the norm.
It may seem old-fashioned to think that the light of truth is the most important force for good. But that is the place where most professional photographers stand. When you decide on your message first, and then try to make the reporting adjust to it, you have created a place where truth becomes the first casualty. And if you ask it to, the camera -- like the people who use it -- can certainly lie.
(CNN) -- When photography first became a method to document events, both large and small, more than a century ago, there was a certain understanding that what one was seeing in a picture was more or less what happened.
The ability to use photography to recount life in a visual way and replicate it in the mass media allowed people around the world to see and understand things they may only have imagined before. The "truth" of photography, embodied by the phrase "the camera doesn't lie," was something that came to be generally accepted. Yet the camera, like most tools used by people, is more than capable of lying if used in the wrong way.
A picture is simply a moment, and although we might think we can divine what it is we are looking at, there are times when a visual representation of life is simply neither the whole truth, nor nothing but the truth.
Increasingly, with the ubiquitous arrival of smartphones, what matters most is simply that someone, not necessarily a trained professional, was able to take a photograph by the simple fact that he or she was present. According to an old press photography saw, when a long-time pro was asked how he made a picture, he replied "f/8, and be there," capturing the essence of what news photography is really about. It is the ability to witness, and capture, a moment in time. Does it always tell the "truth?" That is a good question, since what we define as truth can sometimes have many meanings.
If a picture is meant to be the sole, definitive description of what happened, and no one else is around to see, then to a certain degree, we might have to accept its veracity. But the ever-increasing presence of cameras, both traditional and camera phones, has added a new dimension to what we see. And with the invention and perfection of Photoshop and other photo editing software, it has become much easier to add to, take away from, or alter an image to change its very nature. Can the camera lie? Not sure. Can photographers or editors lie? Most assuredly, if they are of a mind to.
The photograph of President Obama taking a "selfie" with the British and Danish prime ministers is a case in point. Many news organizations and social media platforms jumped on the bandwagon to showcase the photographs where Michelle Obama is looking away, with what could be considered an angry expression. Yet those pictures may not necessarily tell the whole story.
Obama selfie controversy is not new
The AFP photographer who took the photos wrote a blog describing how surprised he was at the reaction to them. And though he released no photos showing the first lady looking more light-hearted, he says, the glum look in the published pictures was simply a moment "captured by chance."
A photojournalist covering an event will take dozens, sometimes hundreds, of pictures in the process. For large-scale events -- the Olympics, political conventions -- often the photographer doesn't even get to edit his own pictures, that job being handed off to an editor. In the digital, WiFi, connected age, this becomes the efficient way of getting work processed and out into the real world. In the end, as viewers, we have to try to sift through not only what we are seeing, but try to understand what we are not seeing.
The growth of social media and the concept of so-called "citizen-journalists," has created a real quandary for the older forms of media and news delivery. Most professional journalists, both photographers and writers, try to adhere to a code of fairness and objectivity.
In the United States, it's only in the last generation that politically charged, partisan reporting has started to become the norm.
It may seem old-fashioned to think that the light of truth is the most important force for good. But that is the place where most professional photographers stand. When you decide on your message first, and then try to make the reporting adjust to it, you have created a place where truth becomes the first casualty. And if you ask it to, the camera -- like the people who use it -- can certainly lie.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Self-Publishing and EBooks Continue Strong Growth
From Dan Poynter’s industry e-newsletter, December, 2013:
SELF-PUBLISHING AND EBOOKS CONTINUE STRONG GROWTH
2012 ISBN’s show nearly 60% more self-published works than in 2011. The number of
self-published titles in 2012 jumped to more than 391,000, up 59% over 2011 and
422% over 2007.
Ebooks continue to gain on print, comprising 40% of the ISBNs that were publ
ished in 2012, up from 11% in 2007. Smashwords was the top producer of ebooks.
See the fascinating numbers at
http://www.bowker.com/assets/downloads/products/selfpublishingpubcounts_2007_201
2.pdf
http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/bowker-smashwords-is-top-producer-of-ebooks
SELF-PUBLISHING AND EBOOKS CONTINUE STRONG GROWTH
2012 ISBN’s show nearly 60% more self-published works than in 2011. The number of
self-published titles in 2012 jumped to more than 391,000, up 59% over 2011 and
422% over 2007.
Ebooks continue to gain on print, comprising 40% of the ISBNs that were publ
ished in 2012, up from 11% in 2007. Smashwords was the top producer of ebooks.
See the fascinating numbers at
http://www.bowker.com/assets/downloads/products/selfpublishingpubcounts_2007_201
2.pdf
http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/bowker-smashwords-is-top-producer-of-ebooks
Newsweek to bring print edition back from the dead
Newsweek to bring print edition back from the dead
By Brian Stelter @brianstelter December 4, 2013: 12:00 AM ET, Newsweek
Print is dead? Not so fast. Newsweek's new owners are planning a return to physical media.,
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Newsweek's new owners think they can succeed at something its previous owners failed at: printing a weekly magazine in the United States.
IBT Media, the obscure media company that bought Newsweek in August, said Tuesday that it intends to revive the magazine's print edition early next year, possibly as soon as January.
The announcement is a remarkable twist in Newsweek's evolution, coming less than a year after its previous owner, IAC, stopped printing the magazine. The brand was basically left for dead -- but now the cover of IAC's final edition, with the phrase "#LastPrintIssue" rendered as a Twitter hashtag, seems decidedly premature.
First reported by the New York Times, IBT Media's decision is at odds with a general magazine industry move away from print and toward the Web, at least when it comes to the kind of news coverage that the Newsweek brand is known for.
On Monday, one of the nation's most esteemed weeklies, New York magazine, announced that it would soon shift to an every-other-week publishing schedule while beefing up its Web production. But some publishers continue to see money-making opportunities in print. Hours before the Newsweek announcement on Tuesday, the owner of The Week, a digest that summarizes news from other outlets, said that it had decided to slightly expand its publishing schedule, from 48 weeks a year to 51 weeks.
Related story: New York magazine to go bi-weekly
The new iteration of Newsweek will apparently have something in common with The Week: a reliance on paying customers rather than advertisers. The Week has ads, and Newsweek will too. But the bulk of The Week's revenues come from circulation.
Jim Impoco, who became Newsweek's editor in chief shortly after IBT Media acquired it, said "ads will be icing" for the reborn print edition of his magazine. Subscriber revenues will cover expenses, he said, because "we won't charge less than it costs to produce."
"The new owners, Johnathan Davis and Etienne Uzac, are digital natives who saw a great journalistic and commercial opportunity in print," Impoco added. "And I'm so glad they suggested it."
Related story: Sam Champion exits ABC for Weather Channel
Most of the print material will presumably be repurposed from Newsweek.com, the website that Impoco oversees, which includes a once-a-week online "magazine" that looks and feels a lot like a printed one. All of that is free currently. Enticing former Newsweek subscribers -- or brand-new readers -- to pay for it in print will be a stiff challenge.
But the new print edition will attract some attention, if only for its name and journalistic legacy. Publications like The Economist have proven that there is still some room in the marketplace for thoughtful recaps of the week's news.
Asked what readers of the previous Newsweek print edition would recognize about the new one, Impoco said, "The new Newsweek will be deeply reported and global, which is what it was when it first came out 80-odd years ago and is what it should be now."
The print edition of Newsweek was a long-time rival of Time. Time is published by Time Inc., a partner in CNNMoney with its fellow Time Warner unit CNN.
By Brian Stelter @brianstelter December 4, 2013: 12:00 AM ET, Newsweek
Print is dead? Not so fast. Newsweek's new owners are planning a return to physical media.,
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Newsweek's new owners think they can succeed at something its previous owners failed at: printing a weekly magazine in the United States.
IBT Media, the obscure media company that bought Newsweek in August, said Tuesday that it intends to revive the magazine's print edition early next year, possibly as soon as January.
The announcement is a remarkable twist in Newsweek's evolution, coming less than a year after its previous owner, IAC, stopped printing the magazine. The brand was basically left for dead -- but now the cover of IAC's final edition, with the phrase "#LastPrintIssue" rendered as a Twitter hashtag, seems decidedly premature.
First reported by the New York Times, IBT Media's decision is at odds with a general magazine industry move away from print and toward the Web, at least when it comes to the kind of news coverage that the Newsweek brand is known for.
On Monday, one of the nation's most esteemed weeklies, New York magazine, announced that it would soon shift to an every-other-week publishing schedule while beefing up its Web production. But some publishers continue to see money-making opportunities in print. Hours before the Newsweek announcement on Tuesday, the owner of The Week, a digest that summarizes news from other outlets, said that it had decided to slightly expand its publishing schedule, from 48 weeks a year to 51 weeks.
Related story: New York magazine to go bi-weekly
The new iteration of Newsweek will apparently have something in common with The Week: a reliance on paying customers rather than advertisers. The Week has ads, and Newsweek will too. But the bulk of The Week's revenues come from circulation.
Jim Impoco, who became Newsweek's editor in chief shortly after IBT Media acquired it, said "ads will be icing" for the reborn print edition of his magazine. Subscriber revenues will cover expenses, he said, because "we won't charge less than it costs to produce."
"The new owners, Johnathan Davis and Etienne Uzac, are digital natives who saw a great journalistic and commercial opportunity in print," Impoco added. "And I'm so glad they suggested it."
Related story: Sam Champion exits ABC for Weather Channel
Most of the print material will presumably be repurposed from Newsweek.com, the website that Impoco oversees, which includes a once-a-week online "magazine" that looks and feels a lot like a printed one. All of that is free currently. Enticing former Newsweek subscribers -- or brand-new readers -- to pay for it in print will be a stiff challenge.
But the new print edition will attract some attention, if only for its name and journalistic legacy. Publications like The Economist have proven that there is still some room in the marketplace for thoughtful recaps of the week's news.
Asked what readers of the previous Newsweek print edition would recognize about the new one, Impoco said, "The new Newsweek will be deeply reported and global, which is what it was when it first came out 80-odd years ago and is what it should be now."
The print edition of Newsweek was a long-time rival of Time. Time is published by Time Inc., a partner in CNNMoney with its fellow Time Warner unit CNN.
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