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Tuesday, December 8, 1998 Media Cynic | Forum | Advertising | Classifieds | Jobs Portals Emerge as Dominant Source for Online News Almost half of online users now access news via search engines or directory Web sites, and 40 percent access news via online services, according to a new report highlighted today by Jupiter Communications during the opening address of the Jupiter Digital News Forum. Jupiter analysts encourage online news providers to focus more on users' utility consumption of online news and develop content around major and breaking stories rather than produce deep analysis. The report, which highlighted results from a recent Jupiter/NFO survey questioning more than 2,200 online users about their online news consumption habits, revealed that online users are gravitating to the Web more than several other media to collect top headlines and breaking news, but are spending an average of less than 10 minutes per session. Twelve percent of those surveyed indicated that the Internet is where they go to collect breaking news versus nine percent that indicated they gravitate to the radio and two percent that identified newspapers. While the majority of consumers still choose broadcast and cable sources for breaking news, 39 and 37 percent respectively, there is clear evidence that consumers are now logging on for breaking news. "With approximately 28 percent of the US population accessing the Internet either at their home, school, or office, the popularity of online news is not surprising," said Mark Mooradian, director of Jupiter's Consumer Content Strategies. "However, the fact that consumers read their online news in small blocks of time--usually less than 10 minutes--and choose sites that primarily aggregate headline-driven news, such as search engines or through online services, shows that many online users choose to use online news as a source for quick headlines and breaking news, not for deep analysis." With the majority of traffic coming online for headlines and summaries, Jupiter recommends that mainstream news providers adjust their editorial resources devoted to producing deep analysis online, and instead focus on developing content around major and breaking stories. The report also detailed that 61 percent of consumers indicated that they read national and international news online, followed by business news (39 percent) and then sports (34.4 percent). Entertainment-driven news (31.3 percent), local news (25.9 percent), and technology news (20.6 percent) rounded out the top categories. The research also shows that consumers' preference for collecting news on search engines and directory sites has also lead to another trend: Newswires, predominantly a service developed for news providers, are gaining more acceptance in the public eye. Since search engines pull stories straight from the "wires," news services such as Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reuters are becoming more familiar to consumers. This digital news research was presented in today's opening presentation of the Jupiter Digital News Forum in Atlanta, GA. Jupiter Communications is a new media research firm that helps companies make intelligent business decisions about consumer interactivity. The Wall Street Journal Increases Frequency and Circulation of Breakaway The Wall Street Journal announced that in 1999 it will publish six issues of Breakaway, a special publication for small-business owners and entrepreneurs, up from four issues this year. In addition, the Journal announced that each edition of Breakaway will be mailed to 350,000 Journal subscribers who have a special interest in growing companies, up from 300,000 subscribers in 1998. "The reader response to Breakaway in its first year has been very strong," said Paul E. Steiger, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. "Breakaway offers practical advice and insight for small-business owners and entrepreneurs and fills a real need. We're excited to improve our service to these readers by increasing Breakaway's frequency and circulation." The Journal's announcement coincides with today's publication of the Winter 1998 edition of Breakaway. Much of the 36-page issue deals with the education of the entrepreneur, including close-up looks at an entrepreneur who realized that she hated running her business; an inventor who discovered that a patent was worth far less than imagined; and a video producer's financial education that now appears to have her headed for big money. CMPnet's NetGuide Names the Best and Worst of the Web To close out 1998, NetGuide's team of writers, editors, producers, and designers have debated the merits (and flaws) of thousands of sites. The result is the NetGuide 99, the Web's best and worst 99 sites, according to NetGuide, in 22 categories, ranging from the serious (Best News Site) to the superfluous (Best Guilty Pleasures Site). "This year some sites tried to add too many bells and whistles while others `dumbed down' the look of their sites in an attempt to appeal to users with browsers from 1994," said the report. "But some of the developments we liked were easier navigation, faster-loading pages, and more ambitious personal homepages." Highlights from the NetGuide 99: Best News Site: CNN "Despite stiff competition from other news sites, CNN is still our favorite...." Best Guilty Pleasures Site: Musings of the Gus/Randomly Ever After "A Virginia slacker turned San Diego computer programmer, Gus is arrogant, obsessed with technology, dirty, usually drunk, and prone to rambling on and on about things like dead seals and the subtext of Jerry Springer video..." Most Improved Site: AOL (the Online Service) "We'd never thought we'd be saying good things about AOL either -- but the new Version 4.0 is a real doozy..." Best Site for a Start Page: Yahoo! "This ubiquitous portal has a lot of what you want -- and probably a lot of what you don't..." Worst Site: CondeNet "The website for Conde Nast's magazines, is god-awful..." The complete NetGuide 99 list: Best chat site -- Talk City Best entertainment site -- (Mr. Showbiz) Best guilty pleasures site -- (Musings of the Gus) Best health site -- (InteliHealth) Best humor site -- (The Onion) Best kids site -- (Ask Jeeves for Kids) Best site for love -- (Match.com) Best money site -- (Thomson Real-Time Quotes) Best use of multimedia -- (HotWired) Best news site -- (CNN) Best shopping site -- (Amazon.com) Best site design -- Bryan Wachs -- (Gap Online) Best site for a start page -- (Yahoo!) Best sports site -- (CBS SportsLine) Best technology site for consumers -- (C/net) Best travel site -- (Leisure Planet) Most useful site -- (The Trip's Flight Tracking Utility) Best webzine -- (Salon) Best treatment of a boring topic -- (Sex Quotes) Most improved site -- America Online 4.0 (the service NOT the website) Most overrated site -- (MTV) Worst site -- (CondeNet) ModernBride.com Joins Forces With Cooking.com Modern Bride Magazine's Internet website, ModernBride.com, has announced a partnering with Cooking.com, an online destination for people who cook. This joint venture designates Cooking.com as the e-commerce cooking partner for the newly engaged and newlywed women's site. Through this partnership, nearly 100,000 couples will be able to use ModernBride.com to access Cooking.com's comprehensive catalog of more than 1,200 brand-name products. Consumers will have access to Cooking.com's original content, which includes recipes, advice and tips from renowned chefs, cookbook authors and restaurateurs. Additionally, Cooking.com experts and other cooking authorities will be guests on ModernBride.com's Yahoo! Chat series. A possible chat topic will be "Choosing cookware and recipes for entertaining after your marriage," said Douglas Fierro, Group Publisher, The Modern Bride Magazine Group. "This association with Cooking.com is further proof that ModernBride.com is constantly striving to add valuable services and information for its site users. There's definitely a commonality among our site users and this particular e-commerce company and we're going to help them create terrific sales opportunities." "This partnership is a clear win-win situation for Cooking.com's and ModernBride.com's consumers," said David Hodess, president and CEO of Cooking.com. " Combining our line of cooking products and top-notch content with ModernBride.com's popular wedding resources offers couples a complete online resource that lasts well beyond the wedding." ThirdAge Site Opens Virtual HonkyTonk Today Third Age Media swings open the doors of the Paradise Bar and Grill, an online honky tonk. The Paradise Bar & Grill features a virtual jukebox with five full-length original country songs available in RealAudio. The Paradise Bar & Grill launches with a song-writing contest. Winners will have the opportunity to have their lyrics professionally recorded and played on the jukebox site. The area also features humorous editorial content such as "The Best and Worst Song Titles of All Time" and a short tutorial on how to write a popular country music song. "The Internet is becoming a new venue for music of all kinds. Over time, new technologies will introduce millions of listeners to music that otherwise would have gone unheard," said Third Age staffer Rick Bowers, an online journalist and songwriter who developed the feature. "With Paradise Bar & Grill we want visitors to enjoy the music and enter into the creative process as well." The Paradise Bar & Grill also links to the newly created ThirdAge Cyber Saloon forum - a digital gathering place for country music lovers to discuss favorite songs and artists. Visitors to the forum have expanded the discussion to include blues, rock and other music genres and have started writing a community song, with individual visitors posting lyrics and a host putting together the song line by line. Click here to return to the homepage of The Write NewsTM Click here to subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter.  www.writenews.com Copyright © 1997-2007 by Writers Write, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
