To understand the context behind this comment, simply listen to the audio clip above.

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I was browsing through my Google Reader, exploring “stolen content”, and I noticed something that sounded interesting; the word was “BooCoo”. I clicked on the story bar and was soon greeted by a sadly sympathetic review of the newest online print manifestation, an attempt to fight Craigslist and eBay. It is common knowledge that one of the major sources of income for many papers, the classifieds, has been in decline for the past decade. Until recently it would seem like their only attempts at adapting was either legislation or complaining.

However, this would seem to have changed recently as a coalition of 300 newspapers have bandied together to bring their audiences with them to the digital era. BooCoo, essentially an online version of the classifieds, is being launched in the hopes of making some money on open commerce. This story is just getting started.

When someone visits Craigslist, they are coming to the first iteration of connected, open and inventive commerce. Even eBay, to an extent, could even be considered open commerce despite their restrictions on selling souls, virginity and guns. When someone visits BooCoo, there is a sense of – garage sale listing; the backbone of modern print classifieds.

Here is a screenshot of their wildly innovative interface.

While writing this article I was involved in a conversation on Twitter with someone from BooCoo HQ who asked for specific recommendations for the site. Well here are several:

1. You have to understand that your pricing structure cannot rely on the assumed value of an “auction item”. This will retard the value of items listed by your users and thus people’s willingness to participate. You don’t seem to understand what open online commerce means. Here is a screen shot of their fees:
2. For having the support of a coalition of 300 newspapers with an estimated readership of 22 million, your website looks childish. While Craigslist is not any better aesthetically, you have to compete for attention.
3. You bought a website URL where you do not own the .org property. This is a fundamental mistake as your now competing for Google Page results with someone promoting music lessons.
4. When you registered your domain you left the gate wide open for hackers, spammers, pirates and creeps. I feel really concerned for George Willard. Here is another screenshot of the vital information surrounding who owns the domain:
5. Where are your community listings? To be trying to fight the horrible realities of Craigslist, you are going to have to try to connect to the real world a little harder.

There are so many things frustrating about this site. I truly feel remorse for this industry.

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Comments such as:

With little evidence supporting the notion that Matt is joking or just being cynical, as per his usual, I believe I can take him at his word. The impact of this decision, I believe, will not be felt for quite some time into the future. But, what is the real impact of Matt Davis leaving?

It is in my estimation that the genuine impact of Matt Davis leaving will be the loss of the staple voice for the Portland Mercury. The voice that has been able to generate enough controversy to make the Mercury a relevant weekly here in Portland to so many pessimists. So, if the Portland Mercury loses it’s connection between the city of Portland and it’s owners, what’s next for the paper?

I am going to assume that one of two things happens.

1. The Portland Mercury begins an exhaustive search for a replacement. Someone who is uniquely qualified to keep up the integrity that the Portland Mercury is known for.
2. The Portland Mercury transcends this bump in the road and transforms its relationship to both journalism and its readers. It finds a new niche to conquer.

Whatever happens,  Matt Davis will certainly be missed.

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Digital Demography is the study of populations and behavior based on qualities unique to online properties. This would include the examination of Website Analytics, Social Networks and e-commerce  as all being unique yet intertwined expressions of dynamic populations and behaviors. It is through this study of online populations and behavior that we will be able to garner a clearer understanding of how we are beginning to interact with the digital landscape.

Digital Demography depends on the similar criteria as do Anthropologists, Archaeologists and Conical Researchers as it is the sorting, the digging and the cultivation of ideas based on a sort of treasure hunt for information. The greatest difference is that the tools that will be used to understand online populations and behavior are fine tuned instruments of measurement and the rate of change is immense.

The express purpose/hypothesis that guides Digital Demography is the intention to act as a keen observer of “meta-memes” online. Meta-memes are large scale commonalities that exist between divergent areas online. By studying these occurrences, it will be possible to create presumptions which will lead to conclusions about online culture.

Ultimately, the goal of Digital Demography is simple, to address what seems to be a gap between regular online occurrences and a clear understanding of why. Digital Demography is intended to bridge this gap.

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I imagine that the real question for Portland is, “Would you pay for content on OregonLive.com?”

My suspicion is that most would not, and here is why I think that to be the case. As I have prescribed to for the past two years of blogging, the majority of Portland’s “young and noisy” typically fall into two categories; bloggers or blog readers. This conclusion, in my eyes, has been found out to be true time and time again through the analytics that I have been shown as the conversations that I have had with my peers. But to base a major assumption such as the success or failure of a Pay Wall at OregonLive.com on this alone would be foolish, what about current subscribers to the website?

It is my understanding that the subscribers or viewers of the website are “typical” or more traditional readers, at least in internet terms. There are typically two kinds of internet readers: trolls and/or gliders. Trolls are those darker characters that seem to always be the first to comment and never have anything constructive to say. Gliders are those who simply pass on through the content for a quick look. Assuming that these two user types of users are the majority of readers at OregonLive.com, it would be easy to conclude that most trolls would leave once the landlord cam knocking and that those passively gliding on through would simply look elsewhere.

With the young and the noisy looking to peers/amatuers in larger numbers and with traditional readers truly lacking the commitment to OregonLive.com to pay for it, I imagine that there is an alternative to the Pay Wall “solution” and that would be a reaffiliation with a specific kind of community in Portland and throughout Oregon that is not currently beign tapped by OregonLive.com.

This community of untapped subscribers, however, needs to see something new and exciting from the Oregonian before they would ever think of paying for it. The relative popularity of OregonLive.com is due to its appeal to the “free crowd” and the site has been designed around this element. To become something that is self-sustaining, the Oregonian is also going to have to launch a new product, something much heavier and significant in the lives of those who need and want the news.

To best describe what I am prescribing, here are the actions that need to be taken by the Oregonian to successfully launch a Pay Wall.

1. Abandon OregonLive.com, whenever you want to stop attracting the trolls and passive audience members.
2. Find a lucrative demographic, based on the 2010 Census, throughout Oregon that is willing to pay for their news.
3. Launch a new product tailored to this audience that is consistent with the values of professional journalism and media standards.

Its a shame to see such a distinguished newspaper as the Oregonian so reliant on members of the Oregon community, primarily Portland, who don’t seem to care for the website. If the future of the Oregonian is anything like the rest of the world, a Pay Wall is likely and a reshaping of its content is important. Were waiting.

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1. Multi-Layered – The idea here is that we will be able to access content based on the relationships that individual pieces of media have to the larger context they are found to have to other pieces of content. Essentially, the user would be greater with an opportunity to view the relationships that different websites had to categories of content and then to pieces of content individually. The construction of the actual interface between the user and the tool/application would depend entirely on the pieces that are put together. Despite, the innate variance in how content is displayed, the goal would be the same for every user: have the opportunity to see interrelationships between content in a way that allowed for ease of use and application.
2. Variable Manipulation - With every source of information, and each piece itself, come certain variables that distinguish it (them) from others. Typically these variables are left untouched, but imagine if the variables were not only considered but were manipulated to provide even more context for the user/searcher/viewer. These variables would enable a greater allowance of freedom to discern the relevance of either a source or a piece of information to the end user.

These are a couple of ideas and more are on the way!

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From blog posts that try to predict the new insights that the traveling industry spokesperson will try to sell us, like so much cheap oil. Or perhaps the incessant tweets during the actual speech, where it seems more information of value is shared behind the scenes. Either platform that is used, there is one commonality – getting a grip on the ever changing reality of marketing and media!

I am no different. I will be blogging and tweeting until my thumbs fall off, however, this year I do it all with a purpose. A mission different that previous years. This year, I am planning on attending 75% of all Portland based conferences. By doing so, I will enable myself to create a picture of a picture, so to speak. I will creating links between different frames of mind, from SEO to Social Media to Digital Futurism, I will be creating a modern image of how Portland views journalism, at least from the pulpit of PowerPoint.

While there are many conferences that I am looking forward to attending, the one that I am most excited about is Digital Journalism 2010, which is the brain candy of Abraham Hyatt. I am excited fro this conference for many reasons, but two in particular.

1. I will be leading a session or two, making this conference an opportunity to demonstrate my “research” and experience.
2. I will witness a sort of culmination of elements that I hope will bring about the grand conclusion to my many theories.

All in all, I am excited about this year. I feel like I have a different goal than to just be herded through the roundup of different panels and presentations. This year, I will write about writing. Woot!

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1. Twitter has proven, yet again, that people really can and really do take days off from caring. The adage that the best time to release a memo or break a story that you don’t want covered is on a Friday at 11:59PM is certainly true.
2. Also, the justification for most people’s concerns on new media stems from coverage on traditional media as many of the Tweets that were made linked back to articles and talking points from TV and Radio Personalities. The new adage that social media is independent or even driving content on traditional media is false, at least from this perspective.

It is endlessly amusing to me to see the habits of a society take form time and time again on a medium that can so easily be measured. I would be niave if I thought things would be any different.

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Its really a battle between the traditionalists and the innovations of the past decade that have led to this divide. On the one hand you have legacy media outlets that are hyper-focused on the maintenance of what had worked and on the other you have the early adopters of new technology clamoring to get access to information. In isolation, these two factions (hands) do not realize that they are working for the same master (body), the public.

Recently at a conference, We Make the Media, I was fortunate enough to witness the old guard and the new guard come together to have an honest conversation about the future of journalism. What was repeated over and over by those in defense of “the way things were” was the notion that citizen journalism can only go so far. And that professional journalism was being sacrificed for the purpose of convenience. At the same conference there were messages of the liberation of information and that accessibility was the new doctrine of journalism. Either way you looked at it, these two parties disagreed.

I think that this was my first introduction to the old vs. the new debate and it was revealing. I personally take the side of the liberation of information, but I do not agree with the notion that it has to be at the expense of professional journalism. This is where podcasting can play such an important role as a key player in this war of information. Podcasting provides a viable opportunity for both the high standards and ethics of journalism as well as the accessibility of the public. Platforms such as iTunes has proven this time and time again.

With programs from NPR and the BBC regularly being some of the most popular podcasts on iTunes it is hard to deny the ability of these networks to maintain a loyal listener base. Podcasting has allowed simple audio files to replace terrestrial radio signals, giving rise to the on-demand nature of media consumption. Without these podcasts, people from all over the world would not receive their news coverage. It is the podcast that has made this possible.

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Oregon Media Central

According to their website, “Founded in June 2009 by Mitch Nolan, Oregon Media Central is dedicated to fair coverage of the media in Oregon and Southwest Washington.” Essentially, OMC wants to act as the link between the happenings of the Oregon media scene and the public. With a mission such as that it is important for OMC to have insider relations with varying new agencies. As was posted by Mitch Nolan himself on the Portland Mercury’s website, “Gmail wanted to automatically show everybody who my anonymous sources are. Fortunately, I caught it.”

It is therefore not much of a stretch to assume that Mitch Nolan has worked very hard at either building valuable relationships with people inside of the media world here in Portland or he is being passed a lot of information via anonymous tipsters. Either way, it seems to me, that OMC could be used in a number of ways that could be financially or personally damaging to people who need to be seen as seamless, the media. I would personally hope that the operators of OMC understand this.

Being that the subject of the blog is in fact the actual media and their product, information, it is important to address the significance of this relationship. From an information consumption perspective, having a resource such as OMC is valuable, yes. I imagine that the real value in having OMC will be in their allowing for commentary and providing an opportunity for backroom media operations to be exposed. Other than that it will be a game of whether or not OMC can provide original content consistently over time.

So similar to the issues of most media, we must wait until we are told.

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