ALJ301

Web 2.0 is creating communication opportunities for anyone with a modem. New business prospects are popping up for entrepreneurs all over the web.

The Week 6 reading focuses on these prospects and opportunities, and the authenticity dangers of the web. The dodgy Wikipedia example in the reading is similar to warnings in some Deakin subjects’ unit guides, ‘We will not accept definitions, examples or quotes from Wikipedia’.

The reading stated on niche publishing, ‘One example is pvrblog.com. Its single author, Matt Haughey, makes about $US 40,000 a year. Said Ben Hammersley: “He now owns this subject [personal video recorders, or pvr] on the Internet, and mass media cannot compete on this subject.”’

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That’s an extreme amount of money compared to what users on orble.com and citizen journalists are making (referring to Week 5 reading and response). The ‘blog’ has expanded into a giant communication and money-making method people can use and abuse as they want.

Media use video and podcasts over the net as a major form of communication. The internet is a blessing for some smaller community media organisations. For example, Syn FM (90.7) in Melbourne, has a banner that reads ‘Syn: Radio, TV, Online, Print’. Syn uses the internet to podcast and publish news to a much wider audience than otherwise would have been possible.

Blogging is a trend that has grown in leaps and bounds over the last five years. Citizen journalism and OhmyNews are a new product of the blogging era. People are now considering, how can I make money from the Internet?

One of the obvious answers is blogging. There are a few websites that offer money for blogs that attract a lot of interest. Darren Rowse, from ProBlogger, writes, ‘I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.’ (Taken from http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/12/06/how-bloggers-make-money-from-blogs/)

A blogging site similar to OhmyNews is Orble.com.

According to the About Orble page, a user can ‘earn anything from a few cents to $100 or more per week’. Orble has three levels of blogs. There are ‘regular blogs’, in diary-like format; there are ‘domain blogs’ that have a dedicated domain name (usually written on a particular subject); and there are ‘promoted blogs’ – Orble will support these by providing training and promoting the work. (Information from http://www.orble.com/about/)

Citizen journalism (such as ) differs because it focuses more on traditional journalism. OhmyNews has ethics and guidelines the writers have to follow, whereas Orble is a blogging community – open to almost anything.

The payment methods are similar though. Each site pays according to ‘eyeballs’ – or reader interest. The more clicks the story/page gets, the more money one eventually earns. If a user took Rowse’s advice, one could make a living through up keeping 50 blogs.

Wilson, F. (2008). “Make money around free content” in Wired magazine. Online at http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_Money_Around_Free_Content and

Anderson, C. (2008). “Free! Why $0.00 is the future of business” in Wired online at http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free

Companies everywhere use the concept of ‘free’ products. These ‘free’ things are a great way to draw customers and utilise marketing methods. For example, businesses like Bakers Delight and Gloria Jeans offer ‘rewards’ cards, that grant customers a ‘free’ product after a certain number of purchases.

The trick behind the Bakers Delight card is; a customer needs to spend $5 before he/she can get a stamp. If a purchase is only $4.50, the card encourages them to spend more money to receive the stamp.

Another example in one of the readings was companies offering mobile phones free with no upfront charges. But take a closer look…

http://www.crazyjohns.com.au/products/mobilephones/manufacturer/mobilephonedetail.aspx?ID=3994

At Crazy Johns the N95 mobile is $749 upfront.

http://www.crazyjohns.com.au/products/mobilephones/manufacturer/mobilephonedetail.aspx?ID=6236

On a cap plan where the N95 is ‘free’, the customer pays $1176 over a period of 24 months.

Google is a great example of a business that makes a lot of money without appearing too. It has now grown into the biggest search engine in the world. It offers a range of applications including email, news, and pictures/video. Google also uses ‘Adwords’, a program for businesses.

‘When people search on Google using one of your keywords, your ad may appear next to the search results. Now you’re advertising to an audience that’s already interested in you.’ (https://adwords.google.com/select/Login?sourceid=adprog&subid=en-au-et-ap-lm&hl=en_AU)

Every time a searcher clicks on an ad, Google makes money. And that’s only one of the applications Google offers.

Ebay also charges people to advertise what they are selling, and extra charges apply if more than the standard amount of pictures are used.

Newspapers can utilise ideas like this when going online and advertising will remain a sole source of revenue.

An example of an eye-catching advertisement:

This is (hopefully) a temporary blog entry. I haven’t been able to access the reading, so I’ll write a short piece on the Week 3 lecture here and then update it if I can read the e-reading.

I love the metaphor that journalists are moving from fact hunting to data gathering. It makes one visualise a bunch of journalists searching for the facts they need, until more and more information appears and they are swamped.

A common issue most journalism lecturers at Deakin have voiced is that many journalists now spend more time at their desks than out on the job. The figures in the lecture stated that the BBC established a user-generated content desk in July 2005, and in half a month was receiving 10 000 emails, SMS and pieces of video per day.

Citizen journalism is taking over the world. Various media outlets are using new ways to interact with the public and judge public opinion (E.g. an online or SMS poll, online newsletter.) The internet and mobiles are opening new outlets for people to communicate and express opinions.

I was interested to read the OhMyNews International Code of Ethics. They were similar to the journalism codes, and the ‘rules’ listed were similar to what a freelance journalist must follow.

I think the big question now is, do you want to be the person behind the desk ‘data gathering’, or the one ‘fact hunting’?