Sam’s Mojo — my thoughts on interactive and mobile media in Australia and Asia Pacific

Ars Premier: paid subscriptions launched by Ars Technica

by Sam Granleese on May 6, 2011

ars technica logo

Technology and development site Ars Technica is offering a premium subscriber product, in addition to the existing free-to-view website.

Of note – large benefits are functionality-based enhancements like ad-free pages, premium full-text RSS feeds, single-page views – in addition to exclusive content, exclusive community forums, discounts and a complimentary WIRED subscription (US only).

It will be interesting – for those of us in the paid-content industry – to see if the Ars Technica audience value these reading-enhancements enough to pay the small-ish ongoing fee (from $5 per month).

Other value padded into the Ars Technica subscription:
- DNA11 Coupon: $50
- CanvasPop Coupon: $20
- WIRED Magazine Subscription: $10
- ThinkGeek Coupon: $10
- Griffin Discount: 20%

For comparison purposes (yes, they are not like-publications, but the New York Times is the most mainstream attempt at a website paywall in the USA to date):

NYTimes, after $0.99 introductory period:
- NYTimes.com + smartphone apps: $15 / four weeks
- NYTimes.com + tablet apps + Chrome app + Times Reader: $20 / four weeks
- NYTimes.com + smartphone apps + tablet apps + Chrome app + Times Reader: $35 / four weeks.

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Interestingly, this train of thought was also picked up by Oliver Reichenstein of Tokyo-based Information Architects on Wednesday:

The idea of creating a business around the terrible online news experience is not that extravagant: Instapaper, Readability, FlipBoard & Co. are already profiting from the terrible reading experience of current news sites. (Actually, Jay Rosen has suggested just that: That publishing houses should compete FlipBoard [and with news.me the NYT is just doing that].) All these reading interfaces have one thing in common:

- Design-focus on content
- No blinking obnoxious advertisement and space filling noise
- Personal relevance

…and they have the advantage of collecting news from different sources. What they don’t have, but publishing houses could provide:

- High end picture material (often too expensive for a broad audience)
- The immensely powerful brand and social network of news sites
- Human service through qualified news professionals (for premium accounts only)

Now, wouldn’t it be at least worth a try to add a business class version to your site instead of leaving that business to the booming reader industry?

It sounds worth the risk.

I’d love to try it on one of our websites – now, how do I get that design budget approved?

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Linked or references articles:
- http://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/
- http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/business-class-news/
- http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions

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Travel notes from Cuba and Mexico

by Sam Granleese on April 25, 2011

Extracts from email correspondence in March and April below whilst traveling through Cuba and Mexico.

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March 19-29

Cuba – aka ‘Tropical Russia’ – was a confronting look at communism still in force, though we managed to enjoy ourselves at the same time and reinvigorate out love of capitalism!

I arrived in Cuba and reunited with Hailey after a five hour delay on Cubana de Aviación (Cuba’s national airline) caused by a mechanical problem with their dodgy second hand Russian jet was garaged and replaced with a slightly less dodgy second hand Russian jet. The specific plane I didn’t end up flying was retired by the Aeroflot in Russia in the 90s due to safety concerns (I looked it up on Wikipedia), and promptly sold to the Cuban government. Though it was only a 45 min flight from Mexico to Havana, this flight was probably the most nervous I have been on.

Hailey had arrived a day earlier and had her own issues (including wandering the streets of Habana at 2am the night before looking for a casa (house) to stay in and finding out her bank card didn’t work in Cuba). Netherless, after a bumpy start we started to enjoy the place.

The communist regime recently relaxed laws which had prohibited tourists from staying in anything but the shoddy and expensive government run hotels. We stayed the whole 10 days in private casas which were cheap ($20-$25 per night for a double room) and meant you got to know the locals, their families and eat real Cuban food. Each of the casas were magnificent colonial houses that gave an idea of the wealth that had once existed in Cuba. The casa owners still have to register with the government and pay a very high tax on any money they make, but it is a step towards entrepreneurship.

So what is Cuban food? Breakfast is about 4 types of fresh tropical fruit an usually eggs. As far as lunch/dinner is concerned there is only one main dish they seemed to serve everywhere that got tired after 2 days: rice and frijoles (rice and beans) with chicken cooked in a dark bean sauce and potatoes boiled in vinegar. We had this 3 nights in a row for the first three days we were there. All other meals are either variations on this, with a substitute of one ingredient.

Sadly food variety doesn’t really exist, aside from tropical fruit which was good. The government stores are very bare with one type of bread, milk, potatos, 2-3 fruit/veggies (tourists get extra fruit), etc.

In abundant supply is Havana Club rum, and cigars. I was sure to sample the mojito of most places we visited. We also got a peek inside one of the main cigar factories where they hand-make each one.

Havana, the capital, is a decaying jewel. It must have looked spectacular 60 years ago. There are apparently 1500 buildings alone in the historic centre that UNESCO classifies as historically significant. All styles from Spanish colonial, neo classical and tonnes of art deco are represented. Some money from the new tourism revenue is being reinvested by the city council into restoring these buildings, but most haven’t been looked after since the Revolution. The city reminded Hailey of level four (limbo) dream in the movie Inception.

So my highlights?

* Che Guvera, Jose Martinez and Fidel propaganda. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
* Architecture of Habana Vieja (old historic centre)
* The music: salsa, rumba (African sound), reggaeton (rap+reggae) and Sol (Cuban pop music) blasted out of every corner of the island – live bands were everywhere.
* ‘Jazz Club’ (we heard some incredible local musicians in this basement venue)
* Horse riding in Trinidad (a beautiful colonial city on south side of the island)
* Havana Melacon (an eight km road that winds around the city between the Florida Strait and the city. Very cool place to cruise around.
* Ice-cream, mohitos and Cuban cigars.

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March 29-April 15

I am currently in Guadalajara, Mexico’s 2nd biggest city of 4.5m habitantes, where Hailey is currently studying. Guada is better known for some of it’s exports: mariachi music, cubism & mural painter José Clemente Orozco and tequila (which is unique to the region and a protected brand defined by its region, like Champagne in France).

I’ve been in Mexico for almost three weeks now. And the vibe here is rich in colour, flavor, textures, sounds, smells. Very absorbing. Mexico is the kind of place you could wind up in for ten years and not remember when you arrived.

80%-90% of Mexicans are in some way of indigenous ethnicity, and a lot of pre-Hispanic culture is mixed with the inherited Spanish culture in a unique blend. Someone from Venezuala described to me the other day that other Latin American countries envy Mexico as it has “a more complete culture” – that is, he explained: the best, unique and most iconic food in Latin America tends to be or is influenced by Mexican food. The best films each year are mostly Mexican, the best music, writers and artists…

Well, the food is so so good. I’ll have withdrawals from tacos when I get back to Australia.. There are so many flavors of each type of food group: tacos, enchiladas, quesedilla, burritos, buros, pastes (Mexican versions of a baked pasty), tomali (corn and stuff baked inside corn leaves… And more i can’t remember off the top of my head. A lot of the food is hard to describe, even when it is sitting in front of you. But is delicious and there is always loads of different salsas, dips, mole (sauces) going around to keep things interesting as well. It is incredible cheap (tacos cost around $0.50 each) but I won’t write more on the subject as I consider it cruel to tease you with the thought of it!

So far I have traveled to the city of Guanajuato – a colonial mining town from the 1500s where around 40% of the America’s silver once came from. A large amount of the spoils was poured back into cathedrals, mansions, theatres, plazas, monuments. It is easily the most beautiful town i have seen in Mexico. Pictures to come once I get them off my SLR in Melbourne

I also travelled to chaotic Mexico City – home to 22 million people – and had a great time exploring the many sites, pockets of cool inner city suburbs, food (amazing street food), climbed the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacan and paid tribute to the Sun God.

Today we are on a bus en route to the Pacific Ocean. We’ll be staying at a former winter retreat of a wealthy european family – it is in the middle of nowhere with a private beach, etc. It should be awesome.

Next week we travel to Baja California Sur – the long western peninsular that adjoins California in the north and the Pacfic Ocean to the West. This is where fish tacos are from, and i intend to each my weight in them before heading back to Australia on the 26th.

Below are some pictures i took on my iPhone for those not on, or interested in, Facebook (click the links below to view). I’ll have a slide night in Melbourne once I get home and get the good photos off my big camera. In the meantime:

http://instagr.am/p/DH5oC/
http://instagr.am/p/DGnOA/
http://instagr.am/p/DGNeC/
http://instagr.am/p/DD-3H/
http://instagr.am/p/DAG9t/
http://instagr.am/p/C2Isu/
http://instagr.am/p/Ct2dD/
http://instagr.am/p/Ctjl6/

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SXSW 2011 Quick Wrap

by Sam Granleese on April 19, 2011

This was originally an email sent out last month and has only been edited slightly.

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The past week in Austin could best be described as fun, weird, inspiring and entertaining. South by South West festival was really a tale of two festivals. I was traveling with my mate Erik, an art director for Story Communications in Melbourne and we arrived a bit worse for wear after two days in Las Vegas. Fortunately the was BBQ brisket waiting for us in Texas.

The first (interactive) was geeky, interesting, at times very fun, others strange and full of nerdy-passive-agressivism. The second half (film/music) was incredibly fun and provocative (particularly the film festival where I saw five great documentaries and a couple really fantastic independently produced features that should do well this year when they get distribution).

The city was scattered with events, though most speaking/keynotes centered at a conventn centre in the CBD and most cultural events on the Sixth Street strip, about ten minutes walk from the convention centre.

6th Street is a highly varied idiosyncratic and solid series of bars and cafes spread over about eight blocks – the closest thing I could compare it to being Brunswick Street, Fitzroy in Melbourne. Yet, it is far more concentrated (no retail), and absent of good coffee (with exception to a couple places I found towards the end). 6th Street was closed for cars for the music festival and remained packed like sardines with revellers from about midday until 2am each day.

Highlights from the festival for me were:

* Blake Mykoskie, founder of TOMS shoes, and his keynote about his one-for-one capitalism/philanthropy philosophy and how it works with his company
* Aintitcoolnews.com 15 year anniversary panel – geekism at its finest
* AGchat – a session with American farmers about social media/Internet which was quite eye opening
* Reid Hoffmann, founder LinkedIn, ex-PayPal talking about entrepreneurship
* Bands/artists: TV On The Radio, Toro Y Moi, Diplo, The Strokes.
* Best movie: ‘The Other F Word’ – a documentary about aging punk stars and fatherhood. Surprising, very touching, insightful but funny as well. Link here to trailer: www.theotherfwordmovie.com
* Movie feature: ‘Attack The Block’ – aliens invade a public housing block in London and get more than they bargained for.
* Food: BBQ Brisket. And something scary sounding (but delicious) called: ‘Chili Waffle Cheese Fries’ (with sour cream on top). I am looking forward to eating some vegetables in Cuba. I’ve had enough meat to last me until 2012.

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Diversified Media Niches of The Atlantic

by Sam Granleese on March 7, 2011

The Atlantic – based in Washington DC – is a media brand I have been fascinated with for many years, particularly editorially as a reader, but more recently commercially as a media competitor in Australia.

I recently spoke at our company about the transformation and diversification of old-world media brands, The Atlantic being one of them. The revenue breakdown of the The Atlantic publishing group is one that has gone through great upheavals, recently diversifying and, from recent reports, achieving its first year of profit in years, perhaps since it was acquired by David G. Bradley in 1999.

The Atlantic revenue is broken down below.

The publication’s $32.2 million in revenue from 2010 is categorised into four areas:

Paid Content - $11.6m (cover price / subscription revenue)
Advertising Revenue - $6.1m online
Advertising Revenue - $10m magazine
Events (Aspen Ideas Festival) - $4.5m
Net Profit - $1.8m (net margin 5.6%).

Two main drivers of profitability are online advertising on the magazine’s .com website and AtlanticWire news aggregator, and events – namely The Aspen Ideas Festival – a week long ‘Thought Leadership’ retreat in Aspen, Colorado.

The festival is promoted by, and leverages the talent of, The Atlantic editorial team. The festival was began in 2005 and adds a physical dimension to the existing reader community of the publication.

Summary

Partnered with sixty year old think tank The Aspen Institute
1200 attendees each year
$4.5 million revenue in 2010
$3,750 avg revenue per attendee (inc. sponsor revenue).

Lastly, The Atlantic has also evolved the flow of information around its sub-communities (Books/Culture, Food, Politics, Technology, etc) on Twitter and Facebook. Of note, the highest followed Twitter account is AtlanticFOOD – a topic that was traditionally not a big topic area of the magazine. These in turn drive large volumes of visitors to subsections of their website (like Food) that are less familiar to a reader who may be more familiar with the magazine. This will be able to be used for app promotion and event promotion in the future too.

The Atlantic has demonstrated that niche’s are not always about carving up a finite pie, but an opportunity to grow new topics relevant to the same audience.

– UPDATE

The Atlantic has restructured Food into a bigger section – The Atlantic Life Channel. Here is the announcement:

Today marks the launch of a new channel at TheAtlantic.com, featuring coverage of health, design, food, travel, and green (sustainability). What we can now call the Food channel’s old guard, from Corby Kummerand Clay Risen to Barry Estabrook and Marion Nestle, will remain. Joining them will be Correspondents such as Ford Vox, Adam Werbach, and Steve Heller, along with a whole lot of other experts: smart-growth guru Kaid Benfield, interestingness curator Maria Popova, and travel blogger Gary Arndt, to name just a few. This might be the only place on the Web where, in the course of a single day, you could find writing from a butcher, a yogi, an architect, a green tech expert, and a renowned travel writer.

We’ll have a number of recurring features, too. Among them:

9 ½ Questions. Leading figures from our five main areas of interest join us for a daily Q&A. Today:designer Emily Pilloton.

Time Travel. These posts will look back through the past 153 years to share the most interesting destinations that have ever appeared in The Atlantic. Our first stop is Ciudad Juárez, 1992.

Ask Corby. Your chance to get food advice straight from one of the best food writers in America, in the frank, energetic voice that until now has been enjoyed mostly in personal emails (or by people 50 feet away—among Corby’s many gifts is that he is often heard before he is seen). Emailaskcorby@gmail.com, and bring on the questions.

The Stuff of Life. Our expert recommendations about intriguing new books, cheap design solutions you can find on Amazon, the best items for stocking your kitchen, and the other objects people surround themselves with every day.

There’s a New Study… Can eating this vegetable every day really extend your life? Does that finding about monkeys really have profound implications for human health? Is this research important? Useful? Not totally bogus? When a new study comes out, we’ll let you know what it says, and what the experts have to say about it.

7 Wonders of the World. In partnership with Atlas Obscura, a weekly guide to global curiosities: eerie landscapes, collections ranging from the Lunch Box Museum to the Icelandic Phallological Museum, America’s Stonehenge, and more.

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Sources quoted regarding revenue and profitability: New York Times

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Nike Better World in HTML5 – Best Mobile Web Brand Campaign Site This Year?

by Sam Granleese on February 21, 2011

This has been kicking around since early January, but I viewed it again last night this time on my iPhone, rather than on my PC at work. I thought it was worth a blog post as I now think Nike has made one of the best compatible standard + mobile web advertising campaign website I have seen. What is notable about it – is its simplicity.

There is no ‘mobile version’. Just one website – nikebetterworld.com – a linear scrolling-down-only navigation now so familiar to web users but rarely done this way. It also looks and works great on any device or browser: Internet Explorer, Safari on iPhone or iPad, Google Android, Firefox. etc (no idea if so on BlackBerry but I assume it would be okay). As a simple story-telling device it works a treat.

Keep reading after the jump to view. [click to continue reading..]

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Virgin Active gym members iPhone app utility

by Sam Granleese on February 16, 2011

This iPhone app will make you look that this.

Or will it?

Mike Mentzer

I joined Virgin Active late last year and it is a cracking gym – or health club as they pitch it. As unlikely as it is to end up ripped like Mike Mentzer (the image above is the result of a Google image search tangent of the phrase “1970s gym”) I have a Virgin Active branded utility in my pocket to easily book classes, check my schedule or change as needed.

This is really a single purpose device, and it works seamlessly, which is the best kind of experience a brand can give. It no doubt also reduces stress on frontline staff by letting members change their timetable directly.

It is great to see a digital idea, that matches service and brand experience tightly together. Well done to Virgin Active and development partner Engage IT Services.

I’m going to rate this at 3.5/5.

I’d like to see an upgrade that integrates Foursquare or Run Keeper if they really want to get snazzy, or a simple diary keeper to keep track of your own routine. Grindr integration probably isn’t necessary.

Here’s the iTunes download link.

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Read: Best picks from last week

by Sam Granleese on February 15, 2011

melbourne skyline 2010

I’m going to start sharing my reading picks of the week on this blog. From last week:

Huffpo = $315m. Local implications? – Ben Shepherd, Talking Digital
Blogger backlash over collated foodie mag – Amber Jamieson, Crikey
Twitter as Tech Bubble Barometer – Wall Street Journal
Why the Australian dollar is coming down – Karen Maley, Business Spectator
Open Letter – Stephen Elop & Steve Ballmer, Official Nokia Blog
One small town, six young men and the long goodbye.. – Anita Guidera, Independent.ie
The Kuwait war plus 20d – Lexington, The Economist
The Shoe Thrower’s index – Daily Chart, The Economist

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The AFR’s ‘Nokia Moment’

by Sam Granleese on February 14, 2011

West-Atlas-Rig-Fire

A frank internal memo by Stephen Elop, the new CEO of Finish electronics giant Nokia, was leaked online a week ago. In this he used the metaphor of ”jumping from a burning oil rig” to describe the difficult choice in direction Nokia faced between declining into certain obscurity (in the face of Apple and Google) or taking a leap forward away from its past and into an uncertain dangerous future.

Days later, Nokia announced they were forming an alliance with software giant Microsoft whereby its future smartphones would feature Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system: ensuring some sort of future in the smartphone market however uncertain this is. Many commentators have remarked that it is all too-little, too-late or a desperate move. On the other hand, others saw it as a brave move to admit it’s own Ovi operating system was never going to match the likes of Apple and Google, and at least humble enough to team up with Microsoft.

On the other side of the world, the editor of our second national newspaper The Australian Financial Review - Michael Gill – also came under the spotlight last week after Greg Hywood was confirmed as CEO of Fairfax Media. Two critical pieces of commentary on the subject of his stewardship of a disintegrating AFR were published: one by The Australian’s Mark Day, the other by Christopher Joye on ABC’s The Drum website. (Disclaimer: Mr Joye is a weekly contributor to my employer Business Spectator’s news website, a digital competitor of the AFR). Industry criticism was leveled at the AFR’s decade long management and IT failures, and the failure to arrest the steady decline in circulation and shift of subscribers to digital of less than 10% in ten years.

I have noticed over the last 2 months that the number of strip ads appearing in the AFR have numbered in the low single digits. It has become a morbid fascination of mine of mine – each morning over coffee I count the number of ads and can confidently state the best I have seen was six in early February.

Mr Gill’s published defense a day later, coincided with a release of updated circulation figures which showed another drop of 3.5% for 2010 in the number of subscribers to 74,733 and revealed digital subscribers of only 6,711. Subscriptions and a majority take of the $3 cover price of the AFR make up the bulk of its revenue. As Tim Burrows over at Mumbrella concluded:

Based on its latest circulation numbers, the AFR’s cover revenue would be around $67m a year at best. That’s not taking into account printing and distribution costs, and before we even begin to talk about the cost of the journalism.

But given that print circulation is still nine or ten times the AFR’s digital revenue, the paywall starts to look like a failure. Particularly since the small online traffic means that digital advertising revenue would be negligible, and it’s taken ten years or so to get to this point.

But there is a bright spot – that’s the 53% year-on-year increase in digital subscribers the company claims.

The sad future as it stands, even if digital subscriptions increase next year at the same rate, is that the AFR’s previously strong dual revenue streams of advertising and subscriptions are fast approaching a single revenue stream of (reduced) subscription revenue only. Advertisers are shifting to higher reaching publications such as Business Spectator, or the business sections of The Sydney Morning Herald or The Age.

Now – back to Mr Gill, and his ‘Nokia Moment’.

Stephen Elop did a extraordinary act in accepting his companies shortfalls and speaking frankly to his staff about the reality of their future. Like the AFR, Nokia have fallen from being the dominant brand in its market to being a slow-moving, out of date and, most importantly, business-in-decline in a growing market. Further, Elop humbly accepted an offer of alliance from his old employer Microsoft that will no doubt put Nokia back in a competing position in three years time when Microsoft’s app ecosystem is perhaps large enough to attract app developers to mount a credible challenge to Android and Apple.

Mr Gill surely finds himself in a similar situation, sans saucy leaked internal memo.

The blogs covering this story this week were rich in disgruntled anonymous current or ex-employers of the AFR, so you get the feeling that with Hywood cemented in the top job Gill will either be compelled to make some drastic changes or be forced out.

If I were in his position, my great leap from the burning oil rig be one that involves the three following acts:

change the paywall of AFR.com as the FT.com to allow Google to crawl it (blocking un-registered users after, say, three free page views)
a dual media brand strategy of free and paid (either by starting a new digital only masthead, or acquiring another)
re-engage under 35 year olds and gain a greater penetration of the digital masthead into universities and graduate programs via progressive pricing and social media functions and features (commenting on articles, forums, sharing, resources, question/answer sections, and specialist blogs, to name a few).

That is only a summary, but I’d like to hear what Mr Gill’s are. As a fan of the AFR newspaper of old, and media diversity, I hope he has a ‘Nokia Moment’ before the rig burns down.

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Listen: Crystal Fighters

by Sam Granleese on February 9, 2011

Crystal Fighters band photo

If ‘Techno-Basque’ ain’t your genre of choice. Stop reading, and DON’T press play below.

Crystal Fighters have been around the blogs for a year now, but I only just got the long player, and I had to share it.

I find it quite challenging to articulate the continents of genres that are criss-crossed on the record, and indeed within each track. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it sounds like a shocking mess. But you have to admire the youthful creativity of it all. And sure, this album is only a 3/5 but it sounds like nothing you’ve heard before.

mobile, interactive media, ideas, observations

Ars Premier: paid subscriptions launched by Ars Technica

Travel notes from Cuba and Mexico

SXSW 2011 Quick Wrap

Nike Better World in HTML5 – Best Mobile Web Brand Campaign Site This Year?

Virgin Active gym members iPhone app utility

Read: Best picks from last week

The AFR’s ‘Nokia Moment’

Listen: Crystal Fighters

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