To read all three of my “mobile-first strategy” posts as a pdf with a table of contents, scroll to the end of this post.
News organizations are belatedly, reluctantly and often awkwardly pursuing “web-first” strategies. As we fight these web battles, I am increasingly coming to believe that “web first” is what the military would call fighting the last war. News organizations need a mobile-first strategy.
“Web first” was a tremendously difficult concept for journalists and newspaper companies.
Publishers and editors worried about “scooping ourselves” and “cannibalizing” our core product. Editors and reporters thought “web first” meant posting our newspaper stories online before the press rolled (but often after the late newscast). Advertising staffs thought web strategies meant upselling print customers into annoying pop-up ads or ineffective banners.
We wasted energy and time fretting over whether and how to move online and then went about it wrong, as the world moved ever swifter to the web and got more things right than we did and learned more lessons than we did from mistakes.
Even today, one of the primary reasons news executives cite for favoring paid content is that they want to protect the print edition.
Newspaper companies are so thoroughly rooted in print and so devoted to ink and paper that we missed opportunities and held back as digital technology revolutionized communication, leaving us behind.
We can’t waste that much time in mastering the mobile market. We need to start thinking mobile first. Now. The world is moving swiftly to smart phones and we can’t afford to be as far behind this time (in truth, it’s too late to be ahead, but not too late to pursue opportunities that can lead us to a prosperous future). We need to make mobile innovation the top priority and the first thing we think of when we plan change in our organizations.
(I should note that web-first meant content would be published online before in the print edition, and that the organization should start thinking first about the web, though most didn’t, regardless of what they were saying. When I say we must shift to a mobile-first strategy, I’m not talking about where content appears when, but about the priorities of the organization: what you place first in your thinking and acting.)
I heard someone recently cite figures on the low (in his view) percentage of people who actually own iPhones (I won’t cite the figure he gave because it’s out of date and the relevant numbers are those about growth of iPhone sales and apps). Actually, the penetration percentage is a great reason to get moving swiftly into iPhone opportunities. If we wait until nearly everyone has some sort of smart phone, someone else will be filling the roles that we can and should fill.
“Mobile first” needs to change how we think and act throughout our organizations. Reporters, editors and visual journalists need to think first about how to package and deliver news for mobile devices. Information technology staffs need to work first on development of mobile applications for popular devices. Sales staffs need to make it a top priority to guide business customers in using our mobile apps and platforms to reach customers with advertising and direct-sales opportunities. Designers need to present content that is clear and easy to read on the small screen (even if this means spending less staff resources on design of print or web products). Executives need to redirect resources and set priorities so that we pursue mobile opportunities as aggressively as we pursue the most important news stories in our communities.
We try to make one size fit all in many aspects of our business, but that will not work in a mobile-first world. We need to become the mobile news, information and commerce connection for people with the latest iPhone, BlackBerry or Droid (and whatever comes next), but also for people with simpler phones that handle only phone calls and text messages and for non-phone devices such as iPods.
We need to figure the best ways to deliver news and conduct commerce effectively on mobile devices: text messages, email, mobile applications, tweets, easy-to-use mobile web sites, podcasts, location-based news and commercial information.
Whatever your role in your media organization, consider how you would change your work, your priorities and your thinking to support a mobile-first strategy. This will either be our future or our next squandered opportunity.
Read all three of my “mobile-first strategy” posts together, with their comments, and a table of contents:
Or, if you prefer, you can read the other posts on the blog:
A caveat: People have a different relationship with a “phone” than they do a computer, and if what you’re pushing toward them is something they really don’t want, they’re going to be aggressive in the way they turn you off — for good.
So while we’ve always looked at news as something we pushed out to people, when it comes to mobile, it needs to be more of a pull… or at least some kind of app that learns from the individual user’s stated preferences and actual actions.
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Steve – Absolutely, and mobile first will require a complete rethinking of how information is created in the first instance.
Dan – Agreed – if we push, we lose. We need to get working on those apps, but they won’t be of much use unless the content is created differently in the first instance – atomized and heavily tagged.
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For something to be succesful on mobile it needs to be formatted correctly (and easy).
For example, a news agency has some hot story but the mobile site doesn’t work right and you have to scroll through all that junk the main site has, that just turns consumers off.
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I agree with Media Guy and Dan. The secret to commercial success in a mobile-first company is not bombarding people with unwelcome ads, but helping them by providing easy access to the commercial information they need and helping them do business with a few taps of the thumb.
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Amen
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Honestly, I don’t even mind ads. Truth be told, I kind of ignore them and barely notice them anyway. What drives me nuts is mobile sites that are broken, and stories on mobile sites that are exactly the same as the one on the website. If the story is good and I’m interested in the topic I don’t mind paging through a 3 page story on a website. That same 3-webpage story on my Blackberry however is quite painful.
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Dan makes a good point. The relationship with the phone is different. That said, I read more on my iPhone than I ever thought I would and I’m not so sure that pull is more important than push. You what would be cool? If you could bookmark something you’re reading in a news app, ie, NYT, and next time you pulled that site up on a computer and were logged in it would push a reminder to you on the home page that you’ve bookmarked some content to read. Then you could read it on your larger monitor later. Many times I run across things I want to read but I don’t want to read it on the tiny phone window or I don’t have time but don’t want to forget about it either. This happens frequently in Twitter and luckily I can “favorite” these items or email them to myself.
In any case, I’m rambling but my point is that I think Steve is right that any media org that isn’t paying attention to its mobile strategy is doing so at its own risk. The way we find and digest information is changing rapidly and radically, like it or not, and “protecting print” (God, how tiresome that’s growing) is not an effective long-term view if you want to extend the brand and capture or even keep your market share. Print is just one golden egg, the goose is that all-important audience.
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Mobile-first is a simple idea but a great strategy. Smart phone penetration is sky-rocketing wven in markets like India and China.
Any news distribution and publishing model that can be truly Mobile-First would take the mobile phone content market by storm.
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Absolutely correct. Mobile is where the growing market is, I believe. Formatting the content and providing useful aps is key to successful use of the smart phones. For busy people it’s going to be short sound-bites (headlines re: Twitter etc.) for news and the use of aps that make life easier (connecting users to whatever information they’re searching for).
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I think you’re right. Also, though, we need significant new thought about HOW to do mobile right. It would be a mistake to treat mobile just like the desktop web, same as it was a mistake to treat the web like print when it arrived.
And see the whole picture as a company. Newsroom folks will think about mobile news, but the company has to also go after the commercial side with sponsorships and location-aware ads or coupons.
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The only way that you can do this wrong is to not do anything at all.
Let’s try SOMETHING other than talk about it.
Count me in, why can I do to help?
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Absolutely right, Jeff.
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What can I say? Let’s go!
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I agree in principle, but isn’t it really about just publishing as much as we have as often as we have it. I understand that sounds simple and obvious…but why must we say to “mobile” or to “web” or to a “carrot”.
It just seems blatantly obvious to me that when ever we are, where ever we are – publish the information we have to any medium we have access to.
If we are at the print deadline – publish what we have. If we have a new story about the re-opening of a flood ravaged business, push it out to the website. If we receive a scanner call about a fire and 5th and Main and we have a person tracking that story – publish it to twitter and maybe a “mini-blog” section of the website.
Who cares what, where or when – just push out the content. The consumer should know what we know, very shortly after we know it, in the medium they choose to receive it in.
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Great post, Steve. A few thoughts, some as devil’s advocate:
Use: Many reporters and editors became comfortable with the idea of a web-first approach once they started to really understand and use the web on a daily basis. That might be the first step to a mobile success. Staff must start using their phones for more than phone calls and an occasional text message.
Report: Aside from publishing to mobile, journalists need to start using their phones to report. “Citizen journalists” have been doing it for quite some time. Instead of filing a picture from the field and waiting for it to be included in a blog post or article, they have been tweeted pictures, sans-article. Journalists can and should follow that example.
Champion: One of the biggest motivators that I’ve seen is success. If people witness a colleague succeed with mobile (of course, we’ll need to define success), they will be more likely to climb aboard the mobile train. This is what I’ve seen with blogging journalists.
Security: Many people in news organizations are just plain scared that they might lose their jobs. They’ve seen friends go “web first” and still lose their jobs. Other colleagues thought blogging would save them, but they were let go too. If journalists fully embrace mobile now, will they have a better chance at surviving the next round of downsizing?
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Kevin, I completely agree on use, report and champion, and appreciate those insights. On security, I wouldn’t pretend that I can predict how corporate executives will decide to make the next round of downsizing. We’ve seen lots of irrational moves to protect the print product, and those people will throw the wrong people overboard. But they will keep cutting because that strategy won’t work. So my answer is that mobile-first is scary, but not as scary as not trying it and not getting as deeply involved as possible in it.
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There are some similarities: Jumping from well-established print to the lower-revenue web, jumping from a well-established web site to the much lower usage (for now) of mobile. The challenge will be familiar: How does a well-established news company switch to a low-revenue but disruptive technology? Does it start a separate operation or try to leverage its brand? Can it be the “two guys in a dorm room” with the people and organization it has? Will it wait and buy the two guys when they’ve got a hit on their hands? Can a local newspaper spend its shrinking money on app developers? Does the local newspaper understand the different consumer cultures of print, web and mobile? Does the advertising staff? If you were mobile-only, how much money would you make? Would it support nothing more than spending money for two app developers in college? And how much mobile reporting will it take to support mobile news?
I can kind of understand why someone might say, “Here we go again. All I want is a revenue-first strategy.” Well-established companies are not good at moving to disruptive technologies. They tend to wait until a development is “big enough to be interesting” and by then, someone else owns it. The best companies in their fields often have the hardest time.
It sounds depressing. There are excellent mobile news apps, like NPR’s. Can a local newspaper do as much?
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Great comments. Thanks, all! Brian, mobile-first is critical to any revenue-first approach (the downward trajectory of all ad streams shows we need to move beyond advertising and a mobile device is great for location-based direct commerce). Read my C3 Blueprint to understand the revenue-first framework in which we need to pursue a mobile-first strategy: https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/a-blueprint-for-the-complete-community-connection/
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I agree it needs to be done, and it could be an exciting challenge. Sadly, too many newsrooms are worn out and managing the decline. Others might be ready to, but must defer to the headquarters of the chain, where the developers are. Others rely on buying from a vendor. Still, there’s no substitute for an energized newsroom that knows the community, and vice versa.
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Thanks to Jay Rosen for noting on Twitter that this is just a start to discussion of a mobile-first strategy. “We need you to go beyond the hortatory,” Jay told me on Twitter. “Describe what a ‘mobile first’ newsroom would do differently.” I actually was a couple paragraphs into such a description when I decided that this post was already long enough and that I wanted to publish this now, rather than waiting until I fleshed out details.
Jay’s call is only part of the challenge, though. We need to discuss what a newsroom would do differently, but also what an advertising staff would do differently (including thinking beyond advertising), what an IT staff would do differently and what company executives would do differently.
I will provide my answers in all those areas in the coming weeks (I have an international trip coming up and am not sure how quickly I will be able to address these questions. However, I posted this now to stimulate discussion (and am pleased with the discussion both in comments here and on Twitter) of these very questions. What do you think we should be doing to carry out a mobile-first strategy?
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You know those services that advertise “Text JOKE to 55555” and charge you a quarter to deliver a joke from a database?
Why not “Text NEWS to 55555….”?
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Great stuff. Cubbison’s questions get to the heart of the problem for most existing newsrooms.
People have relationships with their phones. Thinking mobile first means going beyond pushing information to those phones and responding to a tweet if you’re not busy. Phone software like Foursquare enables people to gather and share information, and rewards them emotionally for doing so. Current newsroom culture plus community skepticism make it hard for legacy news organizations to embrace that change.
Some news organizations might be in a position to get IT people to build mobile apps, but those are few: NYT, and then who else?
So what to do: Think about what newsrooms produce that could be valuable to those two guys (or gals) in a dorm room working on augmented reality or games like Foursquare. What archives, lists, maps, photos, stories or ads could be traded for tech development, links or ad positions? What historic photos can be tagged and traded with the makers of augmented reality apps., so a person can stand on a corner and use their phone to see how the corner looked 50 years ago?
How do you strike a deal right now?
To those still in newsrooms or out selling ads: Embrace clear tagging of everything: bylines, datelines, maps, photos, lists and ads, with the understanding that the content can be sold or traded to other companies.
Steve Buttry’s absolutely right about fighting the last war. Maybe newsrooms could make allies of those tech folks in a dorm room instead of fighting another one.
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy […]
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Every newspaper should immediately secure at least one branded shortcode (e.g., “CRGAZ” for Cedar Rapids Gazette). These will become a critical point of interaction for both news and commercial purposes.
And of course we’re all storing cell phone numbers in our consumer CRM system, right?
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I agree that shortcodes are still relevant right now. However, vanity shortcodes are expensive (a steep monthly fee plus paying per message sent out adds up) and limited (ever try replying to a tweet via mobile? You have to manually type the “@someone” for it to know it’s a reply. Ditto for news signups – make one typo and the message bounces). The character limit is restrictive also.
I can’t say for sure what might replace shortcodes, but I can’t imagine a technology with so many limitations dominating the market long-term.
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A live EveryBlock is something to shoot for if you have the tech chops.
Designers should understand that mobile includes many platforms: Twitter-like services, standard web pages that are reachable by smartphone browsers, web pages that are optimized for the iPhone and others, apps that are really optimized for a certain phone, plus formatting for e-readers.
Reporters and editors should understand that just as a web site is not necessarily the best way to read a 12-part series, a smartphone is not the best way to read a 20-inch story. A different kind of news — location-based updates — thrives on mobile.
Advertising staff should see advertising as “news for customers.”
Especially, mobile is a chance to facilitate intent. Most advertising interrupts us while we’re trying to do something else. Google’s genius, even if they didn’t realize it at the time, is in serving ads that facilitate your intent. Search for snowblowers, and Google serves ads that facilitate your intent to buy one. Mobile ads can facilitate your intent to go out to eat, among many other things.
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[…] The Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette’s Steve Buttry has a smart post on the need for news orgs to move from a “Web-first” to a “mobile-first” […]
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Context is a another huge ingredient in mobile.
Mobile is different from the web in part because it’s always with us. While context could play a role in web experience via IP address, it tends to be less significant since we usually use different machines at home and at work.
We all have different informational needs depending on where we are at the moment. A restaurant coupon might be handy around lunchtime near the office but irrelevant near a school in the afternoon. We can already customize our notification settings for different contexts (vibrate in pocket, silent during a meeting, different ringtones for friends versus clients). Mobile apps should be equally sensitive to context and deliver info, coupons, news, etc. that takes time and place into account.
The trick is finding a way to let it learn from your habits so it gets better at anticipating and fulfilling needs you didn’t know you had. Contextual mobile alerts would recognize that you stopped by a grocery store to pick up zucchini but alert you that swinging by the greeting cards aisle might be a good idea since your aunt’s birthday is coming up soon.
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[…] É PRECISO mudar de “web-first” para “mobile-first”: News organizations need mobile-first strategy. […]
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The right mobile program makes a newspaper money. This technology allows newspapers to utilize their existing sales team, advertising expertise and operational resources to generate new revenue stream. All the pieces are there today to do this. Furthermore, link the right mobile location-base service with a newspaper’s sales and marketing resources and the company can lock up their local mobile ad market. Add into this mix an integrated digital media advertising and delivery service and you have the makings of a really powerful, money generating digital ad service that delivers across many digital platforms. But the window is closing fast on this opportunity.
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A Facebook friend asked about this post: “Has there been much research on how iPhones are used for news? Do people use them as a daily source of news? Do they just read whatever links people send to them? Or do they just kinda scan CNN or favorite news sites once in a while when they have downtime? I’d be an interesting challenge to package a classic five-part investigative news series for a mobile platform.”
I replied: “I don’t know all the research that might have been done. But I know when I sit around an airport lounge, I see lots more people looking into phones than looking into laptops or newspapers (or talking on phones). I don’t know that the classic five-part investigative news series would get the same readership on a mobile platform, but it’s not getting the same readership in print either. On the other hand, Amazon has a Kindle app that people are using to read books. I would like to see someone try (please point me in the direction, if they have) that series as an iPhone app: interactive graphics, video, maps and audio. Yeah, some text that’s formatted for the small screen.”
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[…] at stake? I agree with Steve Buttry when he says that the ‘web-first’ wars are in many ways fighting the last w…. I thought we had put this web war behind us in journalism but if we continue to fight it, we will […]
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Great post, Steve. I’m a 30-year newspaper veteran who left newspapers last year to help develop a mobile news company. I’ve been talking with newspaper editors about our mobile web app, which will be able to stream news, public records, social media and ads to smartphones. Users can then filter the real-time stream according to keywords and location.
What’s fascinating is that when I talk about the app with editors, one of the first questions I get is: “Can you put that on our web site?” Since it’s a mobile web app rather than a native smartphone app, the answer is, in so many words: “Sure, if you want to embed our mobile phone on your web site, we can do it.”
The result: I now have a real-time web widget to sell along with our mobile app.
The apparent lesson: If your customers are always fighting the last war, don’t try to sell them supplies for the next war.
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If you’re interested in this discussion, be sure to check out Mark Potts’ outstanding post: On Mobile Services, Broken News: http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2009/11/broken-news.html
He praises this post, which I appreciate, but that’s not why I call it to your attention. As usual, Mark adds considerable insight to the discussion: “Building great mobile products is no more about pasting the Web on a cellphone screen than building great Web products is about pasting the newspaper on a computer screen. They’re almost entirely different media, and they require very different sensibilities and thinking—which seem generally lacking in most old-line news organizations that are still grappling with the Web.”
Mark also provide a detailed, and scathing, review of the Washington Post’s mobile service.
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy « Pursuing the Complete Community Connection Kevin: Fascinating post by Steve Buttry and interesting comments about the need for 'mobile-first' news strategies. Steve writes: "News organizations are belatedly, reluctantly and often awkwardly pursuing “web-first” strategies. As we fight these web battles, I am increasingly coming to believe that “web first” is what the military would call fighting the last war. News organizations need a mobile-first strategy." (tags: journalism news strategy mobile businessmodel) […]
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy (tags: journalism mobile newmedia icpd0910) var addthis_pub = ''; var addthis_language = 'en';var addthis_options = 'email, favorites, digg, delicious, myspace, google, facebook, reddit, live, more'; Autor | AuthorPedro Jerónimo | Jornalista, curioso da comunicação e apaixonado pelo fotojornalismo. Licenciado em Comunicação Social e Educação Multimédia e doutorando em Informação e Comunicação em Plataformas Digitais. Também gosta de fotografia, musica, futebol, praia e manga. | Journalist, communication curious and photojournalism lover. Degree in Media and Multimedia Education and Ph.D. in Information and Communication in Digital Platforms. Special interests: photography, music, football, beach and mango. Back to Top Tags: Cancel ReplyWrite a Comment […]
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Mark Potts writes about this post and examines the Washington Post’s failure to follow a clear mobile strategy: http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2009/11/broken-news.html
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[…] Mobile-first strategy throughout the company. […]
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[…] concern over this acceleration pushed me last month to call for news companies to pursue a mobile-first strategy. I was pleased with how many people agreed with my call, either in blog comments, tweets or their […]
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy […]
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[…] as described in the revenue approach of the Complete Community Connection. We need to pursue mobile opportunities, as I have described in recent blog posts. And we can’t hold back from either of these […]
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[…] If you’ve read this blog much before, you will notice that transactions are key to both my Complete Community Connection business model and my mobile-first strategy. […]
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[…] I wrote anything as important as C3 this year, it was my call for news organizations to pursue a mobile-first strategy, posted Nov. 20. It’s my sixth most-popular post. A follow-up post, detailing how an […]
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[…] I finished work on the C3 vision, publishing it on my blog this April and shifting my attention to full-time pursuit of C3. As the year went on, I realized that C3 did not sufficiently emphasize the importance of mobile opportunities, so I developed and published a vision for a mobile-first strategy. […]
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy […]
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[…] from the traditional business model. I hope my Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection and mobile-first strategy can provide the recipe for the killer fish tacos and tofu pockets that lead us to a thriving […]
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[…] McCombs of Poynter has reviewed some news apps on iPhone. Having blogged about the importance of a mobile-first strategy for news organizations, I read this with interest and commend it to your […]
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[…] think we may have other revenue sources as well. I explained in three posts about my mobile-first strategy that I see great opportunity in helping local businesses connect with mobile customers in ways that […]
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[…] figure out a prosperous model for digital media. It may not be my Complete Community Connection or mobile-first strategy. But the future is somewhere in those two left-hand columns […]
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Whoa, this is a new concept I have never heard before. I agree about going mobile. I personally have a blackberry and would probably prefer getting my news from my phone because it is more portable than the screen of a lap top or computer.
It will be a challenge, but the web was and STILL IS a challenge for many companies. Why not try a new direction? And partnering with a company such as Apple would be great.
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[…] work to turn some of the ideas I presented here, especially in my Complete Community Connection and mobile-first strategy posts, into real, thriving business […]
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[…] news organizations really want to dominate the mobile market the same way they did print, they need to unlock their […]
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Just starting to dig into your site after guest-lecturing at an undergrad journalism class where I surveyed 25 students: 2 read physical papers (though 3 others pointed out that the NYT is free in the student center, they don’t often read it). Two watched news. No one — nada — read blogs. The five who said they do seek out news all did it on their mobiles.
And it goes without saying (now that Pew has studied it) that no one younger than me tweets.
Glad to find your site, and to see all the creative thinking you’re engaged in. I remember you from the Nieman Narrative seminar, where you put this insight and creativity to good use. Excited to see what happens next on your blog and at your new job.
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Thanks, Jina.
Actually, I connect with lots of young people who tweet. Don’t know when Pew studied, but I’m sure Twitter use by younger adults is growing. Nathan Wright says it’s the first social tool to “age in reverse.” What I know is that lots of young people (not all journalists) engage with me on Twitter.
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How young is “young”? The median age of Twitter users is 31, gone up apparently. Even MySpace seems “old” (median = 26) compared to how I’ve always thought of it.
In my anecdotal experience, the 15-24 set text. Also in my anecdotal experience, there’s not a lot of information coming in from the outside; they engage through media with people and things they know. But I’m not even a teacher so my sample size is super small.
Oh, the Pew study is here: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/17-Twitter-and-Status-Updating-Fall-2009.aspx
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Thanks, Jina. Yes, I think Twitter users trend older than Facebook and MySpace. But my experience with the 15-24 set is that they use lots of media, but yes, text is huge. And Twitter works fine with text (I text my tweets occasionally). Also, August/September, the time frame for the Pew study is six months ago, which is a long time in the life of Twitter. And, as you may know, I have documented serious problems with another Pew study (https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/pew-doesnt-understand-news-ecosystem-well-enough-to-study-it/).
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[…] C3 Blueprint and my posts calling on news organizations to pursue a mobile-first strategy were my most important posts. But I also blogged about ethics, paywalls, government […]
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[…] via News organizations need mobile-first strategy « Pursuing the Complete Community Connection. […]
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This is very true, out of the wide range of reasons you have put forward. I can’t help thinking, why is it so hard to look at what works for other businesses? Mobile first isn’t a new invention. It’s in fact a well known strategy, by now. eCommerce businesses have done this for years already, under the label of Multichannel strategy. Damn it, the public service sector have established “self services” online – and also in combination with traditional mail (“snail mail and e mail) and cell phones and replys / recites using SMS services. My point is that the concepts aren’t new, and it’s hard to understand a line of businesses being so stubborn that they collectively seem to refuse to look up from their papers.
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy […]
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[…] Mobile-first strategy […]
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[…] 13, 2010 by Steve Buttry I will be making a presentation to newsroom leaders Tuesday about the mobile-first strategy I have proposed and promoted in this […]
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[…] for newsrooms to start a mobile transformation. (He also has slides from his talk, and he posted a comprehensive mobile strategy for news orgs back in November, if you want to dive in […]
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[…] News Organizations Need a Mobile First Strategy […]
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[…] other colleagues with great ideas try to make some of our ideas happen at TBD). And I do think my mobile-first strategy posts published last year and this year are probably more timely and urgent now than the ideas I […]
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[…] you’ve read my posts on mobile-first strategy, I highly encourage reading this. Ahonen’s view is more global than mine and not focused on […]
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy […]
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My newspaper for some time has had a mobile version of its Web site, and at my urging they adopted mobile coupons, which has produced good results so far. We’re fortunate that one of our sister divisions in the chain specializes in mobile media. I see mobile coupons as being a great new revenue source for newspapers. We protected our ground from an outside text message provider that had signed up one of our print ad clients and possibly would have started taking more business from us.
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy « Pursuing the Complete Community Connection "Web-first meant content would be published online before in the print edition, and that the organization should start thinking first about the web, though most didn’t, regardless of what they were saying. When I say we must shift to a mobile-first strategy, I’m not talking about where content appears when, but about the priorities of the organization: what you place first in your thinking and acting.} (tags: mobile news+biz strategy business+models history future options) […]
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[…] squeeze the last drops of blood from the paid-content turnip. I encouraged newspapers to pursue a mobile-first strategy before others beat them to that opportunity (which slips away as you waste time and energy on this […]
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[…] 3G iPhone, Mimi knew what to get me the Christmas of 2008. By the fall of 2009, I was advocating a mobile-first strategy for news organizations. By January of 2010, I was co-teaching a class in developing an iPhone […]
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy […]
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[…] Steve Buttry has been blogging since 2009 about the overall need for a mobile strategy in the news media. He has developed a strategy for mobile-first, but I think his overall philosophy sums up the problem quite well: We need to become the mobile news, information and commerce connection for people with the latest iPhone, BlackBerry or Droid (and whatever comes next), but also for people with simpler phones that handle only phone calls and text messages and for non-phone devices such as iPods. […]
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[…] So yes, more senior citizens read newspapers than use cell phones. But doesn’t the fact that the lines appear likely to cross soon underscore why news organizations need strong mobile strategies? […]
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[…] year as I did last year, but two 2009 posts, A Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection and News organizations need mobile-first strategy, remained among my most-read posts this year, ranking second and fourth in traffic for 2010. I […]
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[…] I did my year in review, checking stats on Dec. 30, my post News organizations need mobile-first strategy, ranked just ahead of Pursuing a new opportunity in Washington for the past year (which included a […]
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[…] My brand grew as I took strong positions — favoring a new business model for news, promoting mobile-first strategy, encouraging Twitter use by journalists, opposing paywalls and government […]
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy […]
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[…] it on my own more than two years ago and I have made presentations on C3 and my subsequent Mobile-First Strategy to leaders of dozens of newspaper companies. The results were pretty much the same as the response […]
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[…] we shouldn’t, but here’s why I do: I think mobile news, information and commerce play a huge role in the future of journalism and the news busi…. I think location will play a significant role: providing news, useful information, coupons and […]
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[…] question, and I like his response: Maybe we shouldn’t, but here’s why I do: I think mobile news, information and commerce play a huge role in the future of journalism and the news busi…. I think location will play a significant role: providing news, useful information, coupons and […]
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[…] Mobile-first strategy […]
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[…] respecto a la edición impresa, e introducíamos también otro concepto que va un paso más allá, Mobile First, y que lleva esa tendencia digital al terreno concreto de los dispositivos […]
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[…] Steve Buttry. Anything with his name on it. Highlights: Blueprint for the complete community connection and Mobile-first strategy. […]
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[…] We have to figure out how to seize mobile opportunities! […]
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[…] as digital technology revolutionized communication, leaving us behind,” Buttry wrote in a 2009 blog post. He added that as the media environment changes again, journalists should not lag […]
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[…] Mobile-first strategy […]
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[…] mobile-first-strategy blog post (3-plus years old, definitely needs updating): stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/new… […]
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[…] have written a lot about mobile opportunities in this blog, most notably my 2009 call for news organizations to pursue mobile-first strategy. I think my 2010 suggestion for a mobile-first project for your community on the go would still […]
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[…] Steve Buttry: Mobile First Strategy 2009′s editor-of-the-year says newsrooms need to think mobile first. […]
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy, Steve Buttry (2009) – with link to Scribd document […]
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[…] blogger named Steve Buttry, who calls himself a Digital Transformation Editor, is calling on all news organizations to some up […]
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[…] ideas in his Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection as well as his call for a mobile-first strategy. Steve recently left Gazette Communications and started a new path as the Director of Community […]
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[…] Mobile-First Strategy: Steve Buttry […]
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[…] is anything new, well you’d be wrong. Steve Buttry, most recently of Digital First Media, called on news organizations to implement a mobile-first strategy in 2009. Some still haven’t prioritized, […]
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[…] News organizations need mobile-first strategy […]
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[…] and on mobile to apps. Now happening with stunning speed. Buttry note: My 2009 series advocating mobile-first strategy for news organizations is five years out of date now, but might have some helpful information (or […]
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[…] that stack wasn’t quite full, I added to it later in 2009 with my suggestion for mobile-first strategy, in 2010 with my call commissioned obituaries and other life stories and in 2011 with a long […]
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[…] follow my blog to understand better what we were trying to do, so I published the C3 Blueprint, my mobile-first strategy and other posts I hoped would help advance and maybe clarify our company efforts. He made me C3 […]
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[…] even new yet and no one dominated mobile advertising, I called for news organizations to pursue a mobile-first strategy. We had a chance then. Digital giants like Google and Facebook were fumbling around in mobile. We […]
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[…] it also wasn’t bold enough, and later in 2009, I called for news organizations to adopt a mobile-first strategy. Both C3 and mobile-first got similar reactions to N2, but on a smaller scale. I got praise and […]
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[…] not particularly a visionary, but I called in November 2009 for media companies to adopt mobile-first strategies. Mobile media devices, apps and opportunities have multiplied again and again since then, and I’m […]
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[…] desktop ad revenue. Back in 2009, when the collapse of print advertising was accelerating, I called for a mobile-first strategy. I’m not aware of any newspaper organization that has made such a […]
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[…] Steve Outing’s membership model, Jeff Jarvis’s reverse meter or anything approaching a mobile-first strategy (and mobile advertising revenue has passed newspaper advertising). Maybe none of those strategies […]
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