Welcome to the Newsy blog! Here you will find posts from the founders and staff regarding Newsy updates, features and culture.
We'll discuss the current state of the media and the future of journalism as well as engage with our users to constantly improve the site.
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As you know already, Newsy.com is much more than a website. From our highly rated mobile apps, to our Twitter page, there are a number of ways to connect with Newsy online. Here is a helpful guide to show you the many ways you can follow news across the web and on mobile devices.
RSS
Follow the Newsy RSS Feed on Twitter
Follow the Main Newsy Video RSS Feed
Follow Newsy’s Individual Category RSS Feeds
Social Media
Follow Newsy on Twitter
Connect to Newsy’s Facebook Page
Check in to Newsy on Foursquare
Mobile
Download Newsy.com iPhone App
Download Newsy.com Android App
Download Newsy.com iPad app
Download Newsy.com Intel Atom Netbook App
Video Sharing Sites
Newsy.com Channel on YouTube
NewsyTech Channel on YouTube
Metacafe
DailyMotion
Blip.tv
Additionally, you can add Newsy.com to your Google reader or access our mobile site from your preferred mobile devices. Help others find Newsy by using the share buttons at the bottom of each video. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to check on the latest from the excellent Newsy Blog 
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We are pleased to announce that version 2.1 of the Newsy for iPad app is now available to download for free! Since Newsy launched its iPad app in April, it reached all the way to #1 and has been ranked in the Top 20 of all free news apps for the vast majority of the time.
The new version of the app, based on suggestions from Newsy app users, is built specifically to maximize the features of the Apple iPad.
New features include:
- Improved reliability
- Playlist feature improvements - users can clear the playlist with a single tap
- New Technology and Sports categories
- More videos in each category daily
- Updated Twitter and Facebook share functions
The Newsy App for iPad is available for free from the App Store on iPad or at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/newsy-for-ipad-multisource/id367718944?mt=8
About Newsy
Newsy ( http://www.newsy.com ) is a multisource video news service that analyzes the world’s news coverage and highlights the key differences in reporting. Through short videos available on the web and mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, Android-based smart phones and Intel Atom-powered netbooks), Newsy accelerates the understanding of how a news story is covered.
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ComScore reports that in July Facebook had the third highest number of overall viewing sessions in America. This should come as no surprise to Facebook users - chances are there is a video link on your profile right now - something interesting or funny that a friend of yours thought you might enjoy.
People are more likely to take a suggestion from a trusted source. Think about it, for movies, music and restaurants, we value a recommendation from our peers over an advertisement. ‘Word-of-web advertising,’ based on the same idea as ‘word-of-mouth advertising,’ is extremely effective, and Facebook is built entirely upon this concept. The affinity formed by getting relevant and vetted information makes the impact of that information more meaningful, which invites greater levels of interactivity.
According to TechCrunch, “On average, people who click on a video from Facebook are more engaged. They tend to watch longer than viewers who arrive from other sources— 1:45 minutes per view versus 1:32 for Google.” Ads, as well, are more effective, engaging and more likely to be watched on Facebook. These stats underscore how essential the social networking site is to video marketers.
Newsy leverages Facebook in a number of ways: Through Facebook Connect, users can post stories on their profiles, and comment on and ‘Like’ Newsy videos. The Newsy page on Facebook allows us to deliver Newsy videos and company news to our fans’ newsfeeds several times a day.
We also promote Newsy videos via Facebook Ads, which allow you to target users based on their preferences, the groups they join and the things they ‘like.’ It offers a number of options; you can segment by demographics, schedule ads according to your preferred daypart, geography and a number of other customizable inputs. Setting a daily budget contains costs - campaigns automatically end when a budget is met.
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A while back, Billboard made a series of posters featuring various pop-stars portraits done in a newsprint-esque CMYK format. Each color is represented by a stamp that represents an artist who influenced the artist in the picture, for example the Lady Gaga picture is as follows: C= Madonna, M=Queen, Y=David Bowie and K=Cyndi Lauper.
The CMYK color model is a subtractive color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. CMYK refers to the four inks used in some color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow and key black.
Just as the CMYK artists symbolically represent the parts and sounds that make up Lady Gaga’s music, brand impressions inform the way a consumer constructs their understanding of your product or service.
“Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.”—David Ogilvy
Branding is the act of creating a symbolic association within the user about your product or service. It is about using words and images to create a psychological or emotional tie between the user and the brand. The Economist has done a good job of branding itself as the go-to news source for the ‘aspiring intellectual.’
Negotiating a brand image, as a news organization, is tricky business - media companies can very easily blur the line between editorial content and brand reputation. The Economist makes it clear that what is on the outside of the publication does not influence what is on the inside.
“Success comes from standing out, not fitting in”–Don Draper, Mad Men
I recently got into a fruitful debate with a blogger about the merits of Newsy that he ultimately posted on his blog. My central point, which is at the core of Newsy’s unique model, is that ‘fair’ news is a myth. Editorial bias inevitably makes its way into the equation when determining what is ‘newsworthy.’ The use of search as a variable could neutralize this effect a little, but the democratic nature of a public press requires some kind of editorial interjection to keep one opinion or world-view from dominating public discourse.
There are no facts, only interpretations. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Newsy’s format expands the number of voices in the conversation by juxtaposing news coverage from different sources – highlighting different viewpoints. To survive, news outlets have split their audiences, each attempting to carve out and speak to a niche group. Somewhere in the differences between these viewpoints lies a greater level of truth that only individuals can mete out for themselves. We expose these differences to allow users to come to their own conclusions.
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Yahoo! News is changing the way they approach news production. Instead of aggregating sources the way it has been since it launched, it is adopting a Newsy-esque model of combining news with analysis. Editorial choices are made with an eye towards ‘audience insights’ – looking at the stories users are searching for, as well as how users respond to a story, which ones they open and ‘like,’ ‘tweet’ and ‘share.’
Like Newsy, Yahoo is using algorithm-driven search results as a variable in deciding what to cover, and how to cover it. In recent interviews with WebNewser and All Things D, Yahoo! VP of Media Jay Pitaro was asked about the role of search results in the editorial mix.
The question posed to Pitaro was one I’ve posed here. Will this new ‘democratic’ method ultimately lead to homogenized news coverage? Pitaro responds beautifully. For both Yahoo and Newsy, considering what stories people are searching for is only one variable in its editorial equation.
For Newsy, audience insight is important for determining what to cover and the use of different sources in our videos complicates the mix. It adds more traditionally editorial voices to the conversation. Furthermore, ‘linking out’ to the sources used situates the news consumer into the broader conversation on the topic.
The use of search has the effect of including the news consumer in the editorial process – what is ‘newsworthy ‘ is no longer decided by the fourth estate. Users tell us what they want, and we give it to them in easy to consume nuggets. Just the way they like it.
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Twelve weeks after the Newsy for iPad app launched, it continues to be featured in the App Store’s ‘What’s Hot’ section and rank in the top 25 of news iPad apps. Last Friday, iPads went on sale in nine more countries and gauging from increases in downloads and buzz, it’s clear we have global demand for our global news app.
Download it today for free:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/newsy-for-ipad-multisource/id367718944?mt=8
Not to be outdone, the Newsy for iPhone app is ranked in the Top 25 out of news apps available on the iPhone. It’s also available for free:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/newsy-multisource-video news/id330879884?mt=8
Newsy is featured in the ‘Digital’ section of the App Store’s Newsstand section for both the iPhone and the iPad! Thanks, Apple! We’ll continue to build apps that maximize the user experience for these amazing devices.
And the Newsy Android app is rated 4 stars – you can download it for free by searching for ‘Newsy’ in the Android Market.
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Boasting about 60 million users, the Pandora app is one of The App Store’s most popular. If you’ve never used the service, Pandora is an online radio station that allows users to create custom radio channels. For example, if you create a ‘Prince’ station the system will play some Prince songs along with artists who sound like Prince in some way — like Michael Jackson, or Queen. Users then rate the songs, effectively telling the system what they prefer to hear.
The service changed radio, and how we find new music. But changing radio online wasn’t enough for Pandora to survive; the company nearly went out of business. Mobile changed all that, turning a brilliant but dying website into a popular app.
Pandora Founder Tim Westergren says, “it is impossible to overstate” the impact of mobile devices on the company, which doubled its growth after the app release. The service was well suited for appdom - ‘you could be at the gym on a treadmill listening to your personalized radio station,” explains Westergren in an interview with Charlie Rose.
The company seems to benefit every entity it is associated with. Pandora is an advertiser’s dream: it has a huge reach and its users are constantly profiling themselves. Musicians and record labels love it because it gives them more exposure and generates revenue. Along with paying performance fees, Pandora is also the top seller of music in iTunes and on Amazon.
Mobile devices have given Pandora a future, and a very bright one at that. The new iPhone OS allows users to multitask apps so they can play Pandora in the background while they use other apps. The company just partnered with Facebook to allow users to share their music preferences and channels on their profiles, directly from the app/web. It is also working with Ford to create a Bluetooth-controlled version of the app that can be used while driving.
Pandora, like Newsy, is an excellent case study in how mobile devices can revolutionize an industry and the day-to-day lives of its users. What’s your favorite Pandora channel?
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My friend never attended a traditional high school, and as a result, he loves high-school dramas. Those of us who did go to high school know that shows like Gossip Girl and Glee are far from accurate depictions, but some themes ring true like; you stick with the people who share your label, whether that’s ‘jock’ or ‘deadhead’ or ‘chess geek.’ This can have negative implications - it can limit your scope.
Technology has redefined what terms we use to define ’sameness.’ With increasing frequency, users are meting out their online identity by expressing what they prefer. Constant and compounding self-election narrows our scope to things we know we like. But if we only follow the threads of things we like, will we miss out on things we could like?
I’ve written before about the Apple App Store as a closed model that filters out unfavorable content. Recently, Google and Android announced a joint venture to create a DIY App Inventor, software that lets average people create apps. The Android Market, in stark contrast to the App Store, filters out bad or unfavorable apps based on user input - instead of a third-party arbiter. The difference between the two is huge, or is it?
On one hand, it seems like a closed model may just save everyone the time it takes to for the market to weed out unfavorable apps. Conversely, maybe using an open-source market is like catching a song you’ve never heard while tuning your radio dial. It exposes you to something you didn’t know you could like because you haven’t tried it. Maybe it’s both/and. You could find the same new and unknown thing in a closed system but be more assured that it won’t crash because it’s been vetted. Meanwhile, maybe it’s only by seeing what is wrong with un-vetted apps that make subsequent open-source marketed apps better.
Who knows? These answers are impossible to riddle out, and only get curiouser and curiouser the deeper you follow the thread. And that’s the fun of it all, human preference is so nebulous, so indefinable that it can’t be codified or objectively examined. Ultimately, what is most interesting about these questions is that we ask them. That we seek to understand the implications of our differences, or to understand why we choose the things we like, maybe the best way to do that is by seeking out people who like and ‘Like’ the same sorts of things. Finding people who are like us might be the best way to understand those who aren’t.
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According to Comscore, digital consumers watched about 30.3 billion online video clips during the month of April. The New York Times points out this is the equivalent of 253,652 years, I repeat, YEARS of video. That much consumption provides fruitful territory for advertisers. A point that Google’s Nikesh Arora, recently reinforced in an interview with Mike Arrington, positing that in the near future 50% of consumption will
be digital.
Naturally, YouTube is at the forefront of this revolution - NewTeeVee reports that display ads on the home page of the video-sharing site fetch a whopping $175,000 per day and this ad space is sold out 90% of the time. Barclay’s Capital Analyst Doug Anmuth believes that YouTube revenue could grow up to 55% year over year.
Online video can, and will one day, be very profitable, but Arora also points out that it isn’t ‘that’ you advertise, it’s ‘how’ you advertise. In the same interview he says that figuring out how to monetize web video will be “the biggest revolution in our lives.” Hulu has been experimenting with video advertising since its inception, compelling users to contribute to market research by asking them to choose their own ad experience and give feedback about whether or not an ad is ‘relevant.’ Relevance is paramount when it comes to web-based advertising of any kind – never before has ad placement been so important.
Online audiences value targeted and customizable experiences. An advertiser can’t just cut and paste a TV ad into a digital space and expect results - interactivity and creativity will win out. Perhaps this is why Facebook video ads do so well, content is more relevant if it is given to you by your friends. In some cases users can gain points or currency within applications and games by sitting through ads. Such interactivity represents a fluid exchange, you reward me with something I like as a consumer, and I reward you with attention. This type of advertising is in its infancy but look forward to a creative revolution as more advertisers trod this new terrain.
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Recently, the App Store purged ‘adult themed apps’ - citing that Apple does not condone adult material “finding its way into kids’ hands.” This isn’t the first, or even the most notable instance, of Apple limiting content.
The brand has had a somewhat contentious feud with Adobe and developers alike over its ban on Flash. The move sparked all kinds of backlash from open-source devotees who argue that the ban erodes the egalitarian nature of the web. Ultimately, the App Store is a privately owned, specialized network that can determine its own standards for content.
Specialized networks like the App Store and Android Market have stratified digital media by creating a premium market. For a little extra cash, one can opt-in to a digital universe free of porn bots and buggy software. Some subscriptions even offer ad-free content. This walled marketplace has prompted some to refer to this new trend as the ‘gentrification of the internet.’
Gentrification can also come in the form of pay walls or price points. A recent TVNewsCheck article by Andrew Venacore describes how the iPad commands a higher premium for ads than the internet. Venacore offers several reasons for this trend: higher levels of engagement for rich media iPad ads, niche audiences and the lack of a rigidly defined demand economy given the absence (for now) of huge ad networks like Google AdWords.
Digital gentrification can empower consumers and publishers - offering pricier CPM’s to publishers, and more creative, well-targeted ads to consumers. This means you are less likely to get annoyed by silly “find-your-high-school-best-friend” banners and more likely to see super cool rich media ads like the ones in the June issue of Wired.
Instead of duking it out with smaller advertisers who erode consumer attention by creating inferior ads, advertisers can more strategically position themselves within the walled off world of premium apps.
That last bit has some negative implications for consumers and open source advocates. As Venacore points out, this new model gives publishers an incentive to publish some content exclusively on their apps. However, this type of digital gentrification ultimately provides a greater net benefit for the discerning consumer and free alternatives mean that people who aren’t willing to pay still have access to most digital content.
