More News from Facebook

Are you still getting a lot of your news from Facebook?

If so, you’ll be glad to hear Facebook is offering news outlets millions of dollars for the rights to put their content in a new news section that Facebook hopes to launch later this year.

According to a report from the WSJ, Facebook reps have told news execs they would be willing to pay as much as $3M a year to license headlines and previews of articles from news outlets.

Turbo to Facebook: I’ll do it for $1.5M!

Outlets FB pitched to: ABC News, Dow Jones, WAPO, and Bloomberg.

It’s unclear if this is a move intended to assuage all those publishers that have watched their digital revenues get sucked up into the FB vortex, or an honest-to-goodness attempt to compete with burgeoning aggregators like Apple News (and their paid version, Apple News +).

In any event, the WSJ seems to conclude that the publishers are (rightfully) skeptical — they’ve been burned by FB’s fake news models in the past (see Facebook for Instant Articles).

Google’s New News

Google not own enough of your digital life yet?

If no, try the new Google News on iOS, which the company announced at its I/O devcon last week. 

As reported by The Verge, The new Google News on iOS is similar to the one you’ll find on Android, and centers around using machine learning to train algorithms to comb through complex, fast breaking news stories.

It then breaks them down in easy to understand formats like chronological timelines, local news aggregation, and stories presented in the developing and evolving sequence.

The app is organized into four sections now, the first of which is a “For You” personalized list of the top five stories Google’s software think you’ll want to read alongside a few other algorithmically chosen articles and local news stories.

It also includes other sections focused on core headlines, a favorite section, and the “Newsstand,” which lets you subscribe to news organizations who offer a monthly subscription for web or print access or charge a monthly fee to bypass a web pay wall.

News junkie that I am, I went ahead and downloaded the new version of Google News for iOS (hey, it’s free! Well, other than all that information about myself I’m giving away…), and eerily, the first five headlines “For Me” were pretty much spot on.

While I won’t get into specifics of what the stories were, they involved international affairs, golf, and Japanese whiskey, in that order.

All that news that’s fit to print just  for you, and then some.

News To Go…And Lots Of It

Half of all U.S. adults now have a mobile connection to the web through either a smartphone or tablet, significantly more than a year ago, which has major implications for how news will be consumed and paid for, according to a detailed new survey of news use on mobile devices by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) in collaboration with The Economist Group.

So how do you prefer to consume your news on your mobile device?

A new study from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism indicates that half of all U.S. adults now have a mobile connection to the web through either a smartphone or tablet, which is much higher than even a year ago.

Pew alleges this has “major implications for how news will be consumed and paid for.”

Agreed.

But we’re also seeing that users are moving from “snacking” on news via their mobile devices, to reading much longer form content.

And moreover, more people are moving towards using a browser and away from using an app for their tablet news consumption.

I found this one to be quite interesting, as it’s somewhat opposite from my own behavior.

For example, I’ve been a long-time New York Times reader, mainly via their Website (on my Mac), and sometimes via my iPad or iPhone 4.

I finally decided to give them some of my hard-earned money, recently signing up for an all-digital subscription. I don’t want no dead tree showing up on my doorstep!

I strongly prefer the New York Times app, particularly on the iPad. Call me old-fashioned, but being someone with a journalism background myself, I place great value on design, layout, and yes, usability.

So, I save the browser version for the desktop, but much prefer the app on my mobile devices.

Going against the trend, as always!

Some other highlights from the study:

• Lower cost tablets in late 2011 brought in a new group of tablet owners.
• There’s growing evidence mobile devices are adding to how much news people get.
• People who get news throughout the day on their mobile devices are more engaged news consumers.
• People notice ads on mobile devices and may be even more likely to click on them than they are to click on other digital ads.

From their lips to Mark Zuckerberg’s ears!

You can read more about new Pew report on mobile news usage here.

Blogger’s Note: If you’re a tried and true news junkie, then you have to check out the Magnolia Pictures documentary release “Page One: Inside the New York Times.”  The filmmakers take you inside the Times newsroom and the inner workings of the Media Desk, just as the Internet started to surpass print as our main news source and as newspapers all over the U.S. started  going bankrupt.  Page One chronicles the transformation of the media industry at its time of greatest turmoil. The best part: It features lots of coverage of media columnist and technology curmudgeon, David Carr.

No News Is Bad News

So how was your weekend?

Roger Federer’s was pretty doggone good, having taken out Scotland’s Andy Murray yesterday in the Wimbledon finals.

South Korea’s Na Yeon Choi also had a pretty good weekend.  She took victory in the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship at Blackwolf Run in Kohler, Wisconsin.

That was, by the way, the very same course where Se Ri Pak won the Open in 1998, a breakthrough that inspired a generation of South Korean women golfers (who, by the way, have won 4 out of the last 5 U.S. Opens).

Many congratulations to Na Yeon Choi on her victory.

My weekend wasn’t too bad, either.  I got to play a new golf course out in the Texas hill country, in Blanco, where I also attended a benefit concert headlined by Edie Brickell and New Bohemians.

You may remember Edie and New Bohemians from their breakout 1988 hit “Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars,” but Edie and the “New Bo’s” were musical favorites in and around my hometown of Denton, Texas, long before they jetted off to musical stardom.

If you’ve not followed Edie’s own solo career, you’re missing out on some great tunes (try 2003’s “Volcano”).  Hard to believe it’d been nearly a quarter-century since Edie and the New Bo’s hit the big time — we Dentonites still remember their pre-fame performance at the 1988 Fry Street Fair, with Edie’s hair blowing freely in the breeze and their lyrical music sauntering freely up Oak Street without a care in the world.

Ah, the good ol’ days.

But, Turbo, you say, please tell me something relevant about the information technology industry!  It’s Monday, what’s going on?!

Okay, okay, I’m getting to that.  It is Monday, and it’s summer, and I’m off to a slow start, for Pete’s sake!

First and foremost, news from Gartner this A.M. suggesting that worldwide IT spending is on pace to reach $3.6 trillion in 2012, a 3 percent increase over last year’s $3.5 trillion.

Yes, despite the woes in Europe and minor slowdown in Asia, IT spending is going up, and in fact, Gartner revised its numbers to 3 percent growth from 2.5 percent last quarter.

Gartner describes this IT spending environment as “continued caution,” but highlights some strong spots: Public cloud services, for example, which is expected to hit $109 billion in spending this year, and $207 billion by 2016.

IT services spending grew a little more anemically year-over-year, coming in at 2.3 percent to reach $864 billion this year.

Meanwhile, no major outcries from the impacts of the DNSChanger servers being run by the FBI going offline.  PC World’s story this AM has the F-Secure blog estimating about 47K computers still affected in the U.S., and about 20K in India.

So, no news is good news (See more about this from last week’s blog post.)

Of course, no news may soon become a more common occurrence than we care to realize.  Read this piece from the NY Times’ David Carr on the dismal outlook for daily newspapers.

Just don’t have any sharp objects close by when you do, especially if you’re a news junkie like myself.

Just A Random Thursday

Boy, there’s lots of stuff going on this first week of January 2012.

News stuff.  Business stuff.  Economics stuff.  Even politic stuff, which I’ve already addressed in the form of the Iowa Caucuses twice this week.

So here’s some of the business news that seemed worthy of highlighting:

U.S.car sales ended with a strong year, and a particularly strong December.  Chrysler’s sales rose 26% for the year, Ford’s 11%, and GM’s 13%.

“You Push The Button, We Do The Rest.” Eastman Kodak is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy protection. Reports suggest they’re trying to stay afloat by selling off parts of their patent portfolio, but Chapter 11 looms in the distant. I feel a new song brewing: “Di-gi-tal smoked the silver-halide…”

Yahoo’s got a new boss.  But is the new boss the same as the old boss? EBay exec Scott Thompson, which currently runs eBay’s PayPal group, has been hired to bring Yahoo out of its financial blues.  My recommendation: The way out is through the data, Sensei.

Netflix is makin’ content with the owner of the Bada Bada Bing!  Steven Van Zandt comes back to Gangster life in “Lily Hammer,” this time as a NYC mobster relocated to Lillehammer, Norway. Get it? Lily…Hammer?  I’m guilty as charged, I watched the Web preview and laughed my tush off. Tune in Feb 6.

Beautiful music is being made, bought and sold online, more than ever.  Nielsen SoundScan reports sales of complete albums reached 330.6 million last year, with a majority of music now being sold and distributed online (vs. Physical distribution via CDs, etc.). British R&B artist Adele led the way, with her “21” selling some 5.82 million copies. So, please, don’t stop the music!

The American worker is getting back to work.  Less folks filed for unemployment benefits in the United States last week, even as the private sector added a smokin’ 325,000 jobs in December, according to ADP’s monthly hiring report. Still, unemployment was expected to tick up to 8.7% for the month of December, especially with continued weakness in manufacturing and construction.

Mark Cuban and Jason Calacanis in the same room? Well, maybe not in the same room, but they have helped social CRM startup Nimble raise $1M in funding. Nimble CEO views Nimble as a “combination Hootsuite, Yammer, and Salesforce,” allowing Nimble users to authenticate into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google and ultimately connect contacts, calendars, and communications.  Sign me up — just so long as I don’t have to appear in a reality TV show with Cuban.

Okay, that’s enough for now.  I have to go make some money for the IBM company.