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Category Archives: Opinion
Don’t pay contributors (but don’t treat them like crap either)
In today’s Business Observer section, I have an article about whether or not companies setting up user-generated websites should consider paying those users for their content.
Revver tried it (paying users $1 million in its first year), but the overwhelming reach of YouTube has greatly limited their success. People who post videos to Revver have to also post them to YouTube or find someone else doing it for them.
And, of course, there’s Capazoo, whose business model involved having its users “tip” each other and getting a cut of that pie. This week, they appear to have died a horrible, horrible death, though it seems to have been more about bad management than a bad business idea.
I spoke to Evan Prodromou, who wrote an essay last July about the problems inherent with paying wiki contributors. The arguments hold true for video-sharing sites, blogs and just about anything where users are expected to work to give your site value.
His conclusion is that “it just doesn’t make a lot of sense” that websites pay for users, because payment makes it seem like work. Instead, they should focus on building communities, where work is valued in a non-monetary sense, and more importantly where the contributions provide value to the users themselves. YouTube allows you to share videos and give them a global reach. Same with Flickr on the photo side. These are user-generated websites, but they’re seen primarily as free services to users.
Many clueless latecomers to the user content game (and especially many media organizations) have been trying to push user participation to the point where they’re beating us over the head with it. Newspapers cut and paste uninteresting, anonymous comments from their message boards. TV weather presenters introduce photos of snow (and dogs in snow) taken by viewers. They all plead with you to share your news tips so they can get the exclusive (and not credit you for it) — provided that news tip doesn’t require too much investigation, of course.
When you try to share your family photos or stories about grandma, shocked that such dreck actually gets published/broadcast, you’re met with 1,000-word user agreements that state IN ALL CAPS that you give up all rights to your content including moral rights and (effectively) copyright, and they can do whatever they want with it without asking you or paying you a dime, even if it has nothing to do with the reason you submitted it. Oh yeah, and it also gives them the right to seize your home, take your dog and copy everything from your hard drive. Didn’t you read that part?
The result is that we get a lot of fluff, but very little useful information. Uninformed opinion, but little news. In other words, a whole lot of junk.
As a freelancer, I’m tempted to say that paying people is the answer. Forget this user-generated crap and get real journalists, photographers, videographers and writers to give you quality news and information. But that plea would fall on deaf ears of money-crunching media executives who see Web 2.0 as a magic ticket to free labour.
One of the lessons that should probably be taken away from this is that in order to get good content from your users, you have to respect them and at least not seem to be evil. They have to feel like they’re doing something valuable that’s worth their time (paid or not). Right now, getting your picture in the paper or on TV is still a pretty big reward for those seeking their 15 minutes. But if nobody reads that paper or watches that TV station because they don’t have quality content, will that continue?
As the article mentions, there are some coming out on the pro-payment bandwagon. Jason Calacanis says that top contributors (that 1-2% who represent the majority of content) are providing much more value to these websites than they’re taking back, and it makes sense to pay them if only to keep them loyal.
Even Wikimedia (which runs Wikipedia and related sites) is paying contributors for the first time with its Philip Greenspun Illustration Project. It’s an exceptional case, with money donated for a very specific purpose. But it represents a step toward paying users for their work.
Prodromou himself agrees that some work should probably be paid for. Administrative work, editing and other non-sexy contributions probably wouldn’t get done otherwise. It makes sense to have a small staff of employees to concentrate on that work. At the same time, web projects must be careful about not instilling a sense of resentment among its non-paid users. It’s a fine line to travel.
But what do you think? Does paying users cheapen what they contribute? Should only extreme superusers get paid for what they do? Or should the economy be allowed to give a monetary value to even the smallest contribution, even though for most people payment would be orders of magnitude less than what we would consider a minimum wage?
(Side note: This article sets a new record for the delay between filing and publication. I completed the article in November, and it sat on the shelf while the Business Observer section was being planned. Since it wasn’t particularly timely, it stayed there until just this week.)
Sur le Web: Get a clue
RadCan’s Sur le Web, a blog-style page with links to interesting things online, has added the ability for users to comment, except with a strange rule: No links. Period.
Sur le Web is a very strange animal in the local blogosphere:
- Each post is paired with a tiny video of the blogger’s talking head explaining what we’ve just read.
- Permalinks are created with page anchors as opposed to individual pages, meaning they become useless after a couple of days.
- The site’s RSS feed has no text for its posts
Now this. I’m seriously tempted to unsubscribe as a protest, and would have done so long ago had the site been any less useful for information. But the fact that it seems to intentionally make it as difficult as possible to use annoys me to no end.
I couldn’t care less about comments. Fix everything else first.
But the fact that a blog about links to stuff online doesn’t allow links in its comments? That’s insane.
Among some of RadCan’s other draconian rules:
- No comments in languages other than French
- No anonymous or pseudonymous comments
- No more than three comments per person per discussion
If similar rules had been put in place at CBC.ca, we’d be hearing about it. Maybe we need a Radio-Canada version of Inside the CBC?
Online survey shows people are online
I just got alerted to this OMG EXCLUSIVE OMG story at Branchez-Vous, which claims that 1 in 4 francophone Quebecers over 18 is on Facebook, and that number goes up to 54% when you limit it to adults 18-24.
Those numbers seemed suspiciously high to me, especially since before this week Facebook was an English website and therefore its reach in Quebec was lower than the rest of Canada.
Then I came across this:
Ce sondage a été effectué en ligne auprès de 1257 répondants du 11 au 15 février 2008. Sa marge d’erreur est de 2,8%.
So this was an online survey. Not only does that outright dismiss the non-trivial (albeit dwindling) portion of Quebecers without regular Internet access, but online surveys are notoriously unreliable. More importantly, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that those willing to take online surveys are more likely to have the kind of free time to waste online that would make them more likely to be members of Facebook in the first place.
So take those results with a grain of salt.
Wikis in the news
Two stories about wikis hit the news this week:
- Wikileaks, the anonymous-leak website that was shut down by a judge as part of a legal case against it, has won a court battle and been allowed back up. It’s a huge, precedent-setting victory for free speech and the right to expose information anonymously.
- Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, publicly split with his
girlfriendbrief fling, and she responded in kind, dragging everything out in the open (including their pathetic cyber-gushing IMs).
Guess which one is getting more media and blog attention.
Go ahead. Guess.
The new, dirt-cheap Global Quebec
As part of its regenesis following the cancelling of This Morning Live as well as the mass layoffs and outsourcing of technical jobs, Global Quebec this week showed off their new set for the Evening News and launched a new one-hour News Final show at 11pm.
See Global Quebec’s first new evening newscast here
Now, when I say “set” I’m being generous. You see, Global Quebec no longer has a set. Instead, the anchor stands in front of a giant green screen, and the signal is fed to Vancouver where it’s all put together and sent back here for broadcast.In the images below, anchor Jamie Orchard is surrounded by green, which also causes an odd black outline around her when the camera is close.
Montreal wins Montreal-bagel war
The Journal de Montréal’s Benoît Aubin took a shot at my dear Gazette last week for its big feature taste test between Hamilton and Montreal bagels. (Via Steve Proulx)
The Gazette, you’ll recall, had taken the Journal to task for its “exposé” on businesses that dare to hire anglophones, calling it bad journalism. (I still think the fast food thing was worse.)
Needless to say, the dual-blind taste tests (which involved flying bagels from one city to the other to maintain freshness) ended in Montreal’s favour, and the city is now 3-0 in Gazette bagel taste tests. Hamilton is licking its wounds, or at least it will be once its Chamber of Commerce CEO realizes that coming in second in a two-man race isn’t “like getting the silver medal in the Olympics.”
Of course, I might point out that this had nothing to do with taste and everything to do with naming. But trademark lawyer battles aren’t as interesting as blind taste tests I guess.
So now you can sleep tight, confident in the fact that the best place to get a Montreal-style bagel is Montreal.
Now what about this “Montreal-style” steak spice mix?
Oh, and if you’re captivated by pointless newspaper gimmicks like I am, be sure to check out the most boring video ever made, featuring the Hamilton Spectator’s taste test and some bad pronunciations of “assuage” and “St. Viateur”.
CBC report is a no-brainer
This week the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage came out with a report on the CBC (PDF link). In it, the group of MPs make important recommendations about the future of Canada’s national public broadcaster.And by “important,” I mean “mind-numbingly obvious.”
Reading the recommendations spread over 200 pages, it seems clear MPs were phoning this one in, wasting paper to convince the boss that they were working hard, but in essence just regurgitating what they were told without any new insight whatsoever.
After meeting with dozens of high-profile witnesses, here are some of the recommendations they’ve come up with:
- More regional programming
- More drama
- More diversity
- More Canadian content
Wow. Really? Way to go out on a limb there.
The best, though, was their recommendation about the Internet, an area that the CBC has been pioneering, not just compared to other broadcasters but most newspapers as well:
The Committee recommends that CBC/Radio-Canada continue to develop its Internet presence and to make its content accessible online for Canadians.
Scandalous, isn’t it?
There are some few nuggets of thought buried here, although they’re all vague on the detailos:
- Encourage net neutrality, because of the “serious consequences” it might have on the CBC. (Read Geist’s take on this)
- Force an analog TV shutoff date, like the U.S. will have next year. Their reasons: everyone else is doing it, and not having HD here has left us behind. To deal with the number of people who like to receive over-the-air analog TV (like people in Kamloops), they propose someone else come up with the solution, which might involve having the government pay for free converter boxes for everyone.
- Develop partnerships with the National Film Board, and get the CBC involved in making feature films (a recommendation the Conservatives call “unacceptable” because it is outside the CBC’s mandate)
- Decrease reliance on television advertising. Here, even the Conservatives agree that more government funding to make up for less advertising is the answer here.
- More transparency in funding, including an annual report that allows people to make comparisons between the successful Radio-Canada and the sucky CBC.
What gets me most about this report is how much they drop the ball. Instead of being leaders and making tough calls or bringing forth new ideas for the CBC, this committee takes almost every major issue and asks the CBC to come up with its own solution.
I realize Members of Parliament aren’t experts in broadcasting. But if they’re too useless to come up with anything good, especially after talking to so many real experts, why are we wasting all this time and money on this report?
I don’t read many Commons committee reports. Maybe they’re all like this. If so, colour me jaded.
The least they could do is hire some copy editors. Its formatting is horrible, there are plenty of typos, and it even gets Radio-Canada’s website wrong.
I’d like to think the government is better than this.
(Strangely, the Conservative Party’s minority report makes a lot more sense to me, showing that the real policy wonks are wearing blue, not red. They argue that the report was supposed to be about public broadcasting in general, not the CBC in particular, and that making recommendations about the CRTC is outside the report’s mandate. It also points out not-so-subtly that many of the recommendations are obvious no-brainers.)
If you want more sleep-inducing word-filler, read the CBC’s brief response that says nothing.
Journalism died today
OK, maybe I’m being a bit over-dramatic. But if you’re considering leaking a document anonymously to the media, confident that you’ve been promised your name will be kept secret by the journalist, think again.
Today, the National Post lost an appeal which pitted confidentiality of sources against the interests of law enforcement. And the court has ordered the Post to reveal the identity of an anonymous source.
The case stems from the Shawinigate controversy (I’m not a fan of “-gate” terms, but this one just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?), in which then-prime minister Jean Chrétien had apparently helped to secure a generous loan for a hotel in his home riding, next to a golf course he technically still had a financial interest in.
Specifically, the case concerns a document received by Post reporter Andrew McIntosh, which appeared to be a loan application from the hotel. McIntosh gave his source a guarantee of anonymity in exchange for the document. But when he attempted to verify it with the bank, the bank declared it to be a forgery and began an investigation.
That investigation led to a court order for the Post to produce the document and the envelope it came in. The Crown wanted to determine the identity of the alleged forger and potentially file charges.
But (according to McIntosh) the source of the document claims he received it anonymously through the mail (hence McIntosh’s need to authenticate it), so if this is true the source would not have been the forger.
The ruling by the Ontario court of appeal argues that the interest of law enforcement to investigate a forgery intended to bring down a sitting prime minister outweighs the Post’s need to protect its sources.
In it, the court agrees with the Crown that the documents themselves are important evidence, and that the leak itself is the crime they’re investigating. Insert reference to the Valerie Plame scandal here, which also wasn’t very friendly to the media’s anonymous sources.
A key phrase comes in para. 75:
(Section 2(b) of the Charter, which guarantees freedom of the press) does not guarantee that journalists have an automatic right to protect the confidentiality of their sources.
Similarly, in para. 79:
The journalist-confidential source relationship is not protected by a class privilege. However […] the confidentiality of the relationship between a journalist and the journalist’s source may be protected on a case-by-case basis.
In para. 94:
Journalists can never guarantee confidentiality. There will be some cases – and this is one of them – where the privilege cannot be recognized. Refusing to recognize the privilege in appropriate cases will not, in our view, cause media sources to “dry-up”.
Nice to see the court is so confident. But to me, this ruling seems to say that a journalist can be forced to give me up if there’s a reasonable belief (whether it’s true or not) that knowing my identity may be important to the police investigating a crime.
Considering how many confidential leaks involve some issues of legality, I could certainly see more people clamming up about important issues of public interest in the belief that they could be prosecuted, fired or otherwise be punished for bringing it to light.
Confidential sources are confidential, except when the government decides it wants to know.
The judgment also includes a dig at new media* includes an argument from the Crown which suggests that new media journalists aren’t journalists, in para. 98:
[The Crown submits that …] Today, many persons, especially by using the internet, may be called “journalists” or “the press” because they disseminate information to the public, yet may not merit the journalist-confidential source privilege.
We reject the Crown’s first contention. The case-by-case approach to privilege does not require us to establish the boundaries of legitimate journalism.
So feel free to ignore what I’m saying here. Because according to the Ontario court of appeal, I’m probably not a journalist.*
*I totally misread the judgment originally and read a summary of the Crown’s argument as the judgment of the court. My apologies.
UPDATE:
Conventional wisdom is crap
This article says so many good things about how newspapers have no idea how to run websites, I feel I should quote it all. But some brief points I wish I could spraypaint on a local overpass:
- “Conventional wisdom says that newspapers are caught in a business model which doesn’t support the changes to digital media, and despite huge efforts, the newspaper industry is in decline. Maybe there’s no longer a place for traditional newspapers. That’s what the Register’s publisher seems to be saying. The conventional wisdom is crap.”
- “Most digital operations are seriously under-staffed and under-resourced. They don’t employ even the basic traffic-building strategies that independents are using with great success.”
- “Digg, Reddit, Newsvine and others are experimenting with community selection of news, while newspapers pay little more than lip service to reader involvement.”
- “Social networking has changed the way young people interact, yet newspapers have failed to meaningfully take the plunge.”
- “The back end digital news production structure at most newspapers is a mess.”
- ” Reporters and editors are pressed to add digital duties – blogs, podcasts etc – as add-ons to their “regular” jobs instead of incorporating the digital world as essential tools that should make their ability to gather and tell stories and interact with their communities easier.” (I would add: They’re expected to add these duties without extra pay, which means they’re absolutely unmotivated to do so.)
- “So I want to advertise on the website of my local paper. How about those 2.2 million P-I readers? I go to the website. Look for how to do it. Not easy. I have to call someone, negotiate a deal.” (Small, niche advertisers should be able to buy online ads in minutes with a credit card, and without having to call anyone.)
Makes sense, no?
Media != celebrity, CBC
Dear CBC,
I subscribe to your “media news” feed, because I have a keen interest in journalism and the media.
I do not, however, have any interest in Britney Spears or Michael Jackson. What do celebrity gossip stories have to do with the media, other than showing us that non-paparazzi outlets will stoop to this level too?
Please separate your celebrity gossip from your media-related stories.
Thank you.
Ickiness
A New Brunswick TV personality has failed in his “looking at child porn online for research” excuse and found guilty of being icky.
Though I don’t particularly believe his story (after all, how much can you learn about child porn just by looking at it?), it makes me wonder if there should be an exception in these kinds of laws for journalists with legitmate interest, and if so whether laws should even exist in the first place that restrict what information we can expose ourselves to.
Should looking at dirty pictures be illegal? And if so, where does one draw the line? Am I breaking the law if I watch a Tatu video?
This Morning Live is no more
Global Quebec’s morning show This Morning Live signed off for good this morning. There had been rumours for months now that the show was being cancelled, but no official announcement.
In this video, host Tracey McKee breaks down on air along with other TML staff who, I guess, are now out of a job.
In TML’s place, Global Quebec will be bringing back an evening newscast, News Final, 11pm daily, seven days a week. It will be one hour long, except on Saturdays when it’s a half-hour before Saturday Night Live.
As far as I can tell, this is the only regional programming that will be added to replace the cancelled morning program, and that’s assuming the weekend newscasts will be local ones and not national ones. No official announcement has been made yet. News Final starts Monday, March 3.
The addition of News Final adds 6.5 hours a week to Global Quebec’s regional programming schedule, far below the 15 hours a week TML represented. Added to Global Quebec’s regional evening newscast, this means 9 hours a week of regional programming.
Violating its license?
Here’s the problem: Global Quebec’s CRTC broadcast license (as approved in 1997 when the network launched and renewed in 2001) requires 18 hours of regional programming a week (“regional” meaning “Montreal, Quebec City and Sherbrooke”). Unless I missed some license amendment or I’m missing 9 hours of regional programming that’s suddenly going to appear, this would put Global Quebec in violation of its license, which is up for renewal in August.
Oscar Peterson metro won’t be easy to accomplish
The local media have been all over plagiarizing The Gazette reporting on a Facebook group that advocates renaming the Lionel-Groulx metro station after Oscar Peterson. Groulx was a racist, the suggestion goes, and Peterson would be much more befitting of a metro station name.
The group has exploded in popularity, due to both the media coverage and regular word-of-mouth. It has over 1,000 members now.
The idea isn’t new, actually. It’s been going around for quite some time. Other proposed new names for Lionel-Groulx include Yitzhak-Rabin and Gabrielle-Roy.
Unfortunately, it’s somewhat of a non-starter for two reasons:
- The Lionel-Groulx metro, like most metro stations, is actually named after a street nearby, namely Lionel-Groulx Ave.
- The STM currently has a moratorium in place against station renaming, thanks to the rather unpopular Longueuil-Université-de-Sherbrooke mess.
And that doesn’t get into the whole mess about renaming something from a francophone name to an anglophone one.
Personally, I think it should be renamed The-Jackal.
UPDATE (Feb. 28): The inevitable backlash group has already been formed.
UPDATE: Elsewhere in the blogosphere:
- Kicking the bigots off the metro (slushblog)
- Rename Place St. Henri (CTV News Postscript)
TQS still on life-support
I know this will shock and amaze you, but TQS has gotten another extension. Like that kid in college who could never get an assignment done on time, they went to the teacher’s office, cried their eyes out and explained how complicated the situation is and how they were working really hard getting it done.
Good thing TQS doesn’t owe me any money.
Meanwhile, the Only Reason For TQS’s Financial Problems is back in the news, with CTV and Canwest (full disclosure: Canwest is the Gazette’s — and therefore my — corporate overlord) deciding they, too, want cable and satellite TV providers to give them money for their over-the-air channels.
I don’t buy Rogers’s argument that Canadians will leave cable TV if they have to pay a few bucks more a month for it.
But that’s not the point, is it? Why should I have to pay for channels I can pick up with an antenna? Those broadcasters have already decided to broadcast those channels free to everyone. They can’t change their minds now and say it’s pay TV (but only for some).
Don’t expect the companies fighting over this to bring that minor but up, though. Principle doesn’t bring them money.