Difference between revisions of "Ite-collaboration"

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<H1><i>What do we mean by the word trust?</i></h1>
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<H1><i>Collaboration in the U.S. news industry -- it hasn't always worked</i></h1>
  
 
<i>This is a sidebar to a [http://www.rjionline.org/privacypersonalizationpayment/part04 longer piece] found at the Reynolds Journalism Institute website.</i>
 
<i>This is a sidebar to a [http://www.rjionline.org/privacypersonalizationpayment/part04 longer piece] found at the Reynolds Journalism Institute website.</i>
 
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BY BILL DENSMORE<br><br>
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BY BILL DENSMORE <br><br>
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The U.S. news industry has had limited success at collaboration. In fact, small groups of newspaper owners have co-owned modest successes, including [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_Ventures Classified Ventures.]  But two efforts to build digital-era content exchanges have failed: <br>
  
The idea of trust being outsourced is intriguing and worthy of brief discussion. We largely outsource trust to Facebook when we use Facebook. We outsource trust to Google. And we are in effect building personas, but those personas are fragmented and spread like breadcrumbs across hundreds of websites. They are not in any coordinated place, yetThere is some indication that both Facebook and Google are attempting to respond to both regulatory pressure and potential consumer interest in creating a persona dashboard. This is a promising development -- but only if those persona silos are able, one day, to be shared, disconnected and moved, all under the consumer’s purview and control.
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*In 1995, nine of the largest U.S. daily newspaper publishers formed the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Century_Network New Century Network] and hired Cox Enterprises executive Peter Winter to run itTheir goal was to create a central aggregation site for newspaper-generated content and also an advertising-sharing network. Some progress was made on advertising, and a “portal” with some topical news went public. But the NCN did not create any technology for pricing or sharing payment information content and in 1998 it shut down when the partners couldn’t agree to added investment beyond $25 million spent.  
 
Inherent in the word trust is usually the need for an intermediary. In human communities, I trust somebody else in the community either because I have direct personal interactions with them (which I judge to be favorable), or because they’re vouched for by some third party, like a bank or social-service entity, an affinity group, school or mutual friend. Because the web is virtual, and face-to-face interactions impossible, trust has to be built either through those third-party references or through some method of direct though virtual interaction such as friends in Facebook.
 
  
Knight Foundation vice president [https://bracken.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/on-distributed-trust-identity-reputation-and-anonymity/ John Bracken] and engineer turned accidental entrepreneur Craig Newmark, founder and principal owner of Craigslist, have been saying since 2010 that a distributed trust network to help people manage their reputations and privacy, is the “next big thing on the web. Newmark [http://www.newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Craig-trust told GigaOhm’s Matthew Ingram] in a video interview that as a society we needed to “get our act together and make this happen.” 
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*In January 2012,  The Associated Press, Business Wire and 26 newspaper publishers of varying sizes capitalized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewsRight NewsRight LLC.] Initially, publishers thought they were creating a service that would police copyright infringement and collect content royalties. But management quickly saw that as impractical and not a good business model and attempted to move in a different direction aggregate audience and share content with dynamic, real-time pricing competition among participating publishersThey obtained [http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2010/257316.htm tacit antitrust clearance] from the U.S. Justice Department.  (See Appendix A) Some big publishers didn’t buy into the new plan and NewsRight liquidated without launching.  
  
[http://central.colostate.edu/people/plaisanc/ Patrick L. Plaisance,] a Colorado State University journalism professor, has [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/virtue-in-the-media-world/201410/trustworthiness-in-digital-journalism written about] the Trust Project at Santa Clara University, which has adopted a [http://www.scu.edu/ethics-center/digital-journalism-ethics/2014-roundtable.cfm sub-focus on journalism] through leadership from a Google Inc., executive,  Richard Gingras. “Journalists across the country are taking trust seriously,” writes Plaisance. “Historically, journalists have done a lousy job explaining themselves to the public they serve, resulting in a chronic disconnect between newsroom culture and what audiences expect.
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*In about 2005, a substantial group of U.S. daily publishers formed the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium and aligned with Yahoo! Inc. The idea was to use Yahoo’s advertising technology and the feet-on-the-street sales muscle of newspapers to share revenue from  small-market local businesses that were not otherwise being enticed online.  There are various assessments on what happened, but in 2013  much the same group of publishers retitled themselves the [http://www.localmediaconsortium.com/ Local Media Consortium,] added broadcasters, and negotiated a non-exclusive, new deal with Google Inc. to use Google’s advertising platformParticipants seem happy with the new arrangement; it’s unclear whether it will expand beyond programmatic advertising.  
   
 
In an increasingly virtual and global society trust is almost always outsourced. It’s increasingly rare that trust is based upon direct, face-to-face, one-to-one relationships. The Visa network is really more a trust network than a financial network if you think about it. It allows me to walk into a bank in Prague and withdraw or borrow money by presenting my Visa card. The Prague bank has no basis to trust me personally, it’s just that I have an account with a bank that is a member of the Visa network, and that means they know they will be paid back – if they give me some cash.  They are trusting a third party – Visa – and extending that umbrella of shared trust to me.
 
  
In one context, trust can refer to trustworthy information, such as news. In another context it can imply the trustworthy use of information. In Bellevue, Wash., former Microsoft Inc. executive [https://www.otalliance.org/about-us/staff Craig Spiezle] has helped for the [https://www.otalliance.org/about-us/ Online Trust Alliance,] a 501(c)3 nonprofit backed by Microsoft, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Verisign, Constant Contact, Symantec, Publishers Clearing House, American Greetings, comScore  and a [https://www.otalliance.org/about-us/members set of other technology and marketing] companies. Its mission is “to enhance online trust and user empowerment” and protect users’ security, privacy and identity. OTA supports [https://www.otalliance.org/committees collaborative public-private partnerships,] benchmark reporting, meaningful self-regulation and data stewardship.  “We represent businesses that want to do the right thing and consumers who want a more safe experience,” says Spiezle.  There is lots of room for improving trust in the advertising world, he says.  The voluntary “do not track” initiative is a failure, because few advertisers are respecting it“Users are setting it, but no one is honoring it.”  Former FCC official [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/27/opinion/the-slow-death-of-do-not-track.html?_r=0 Fred Campbell agreed] in a December 2014 New York Times op-ed.
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There are at least two other examples of effective collaboration in the U.S. newspaper industry and both of them are co-operatives, rather than for-profit ventures such as NCN and News Right. They are [http://www.ap.org/company/history/ap-history The Associated Press] and the [http://www.pagecooperative.com/about/ PAGE Co-operative.The ubiquitous AP is owned by the U.S. dailies who have joined it. PAGE is a Pennsylvania-based buying co-operative comprised mostly of smaller, family-owned newspapersTypically, co-operatives do not compete with their owners by the nature of their business, and that was true of The AP for most of its 168-year existence. But The AP began selling its news report to non-member broadcasters in the middle of the 20th century, and in the mid-1990s it started selling its report to online services like Google and Yahoo, effectively strengthening the ability of digital platforms to outpace newspaper websites as online purveyors of news.  Today, less than a quarter of The AP’s revenue is said to come from newspaper member assessments.<BR><BR>
 
The point of a shared-user network for trust, identity, privacy and information commerce is to create that kind of third-party trust infrastructure for information commerce. It is not to overcome or supplant the investment in sharing and persona management that existing institutions already have. What’s necessary is to create a framework that allows the existing institutions to leverage the trust relationships they’ve already built with their users – to enable additional commerce across additional platforms and in other areas – and to share that trust and those relationships with other parties.
 
  
“You've got the title right. This is going to rise and fall on trust,” says [http://vtdigger.org/about-vtdigger/the-vermont-journalism-trust/ Bill Schubart,] founder of the [http://www.j-lab.org/ideas/category/spotted/new-stewardship-model-for-journalism-raises-88000-in-six-months/ Vermont Journalism Trust] and a former New York-based publisher, music-industry and media entrepreneur. “When I looked at that the first thing I thought of was an organization that defines and establishes journalistic integrity. That was the first thing I thought of. I didn't think about data trust, I didn't think about commerce trust. I thought about an association that said you have been branded as a trustworthy journalistic enterprise based on your standards.  Antitrust never entered my mind. In fact, when you raise it lower in your piece, I thought it was irrelevant. It didn't even occur to me." <br><br>
 
 
<h2>[http://www.rjionline.org/privacypersonalizationpayment/ BACK TO THE RJI SERIES]</H2>
 
<h2>[http://www.rjionline.org/privacypersonalizationpayment/ BACK TO THE RJI SERIES]</H2>

Latest revision as of 19:07, 17 February 2015

Collaboration in the U.S. news industry -- it hasn't always worked

This is a sidebar to a longer piece found at the Reynolds Journalism Institute website.



BY BILL DENSMORE

The U.S. news industry has had limited success at collaboration. In fact, small groups of newspaper owners have co-owned modest successes, including Classified Ventures. But two efforts to build digital-era content exchanges have failed:

  • In 1995, nine of the largest U.S. daily newspaper publishers formed the New Century Network and hired Cox Enterprises executive Peter Winter to run it. Their goal was to create a central aggregation site for newspaper-generated content and also an advertising-sharing network. Some progress was made on advertising, and a “portal” with some topical news went public. But the NCN did not create any technology for pricing or sharing payment information content and in 1998 it shut down when the partners couldn’t agree to added investment beyond $25 million spent.
  • In January 2012, The Associated Press, Business Wire and 26 newspaper publishers of varying sizes capitalized NewsRight LLC. Initially, publishers thought they were creating a service that would police copyright infringement and collect content royalties. But management quickly saw that as impractical and not a good business model and attempted to move in a different direction – aggregate audience and share content with dynamic, real-time pricing competition among participating publishers. They obtained tacit antitrust clearance from the U.S. Justice Department. (See Appendix A) Some big publishers didn’t buy into the new plan and NewsRight liquidated without launching.
  • In about 2005, a substantial group of U.S. daily publishers formed the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium and aligned with Yahoo! Inc. The idea was to use Yahoo’s advertising technology and the feet-on-the-street sales muscle of newspapers to share revenue from small-market local businesses that were not otherwise being enticed online. There are various assessments on what happened, but in 2013 much the same group of publishers retitled themselves the Local Media Consortium, added broadcasters, and negotiated a non-exclusive, new deal with Google Inc. to use Google’s advertising platform. Participants seem happy with the new arrangement; it’s unclear whether it will expand beyond programmatic advertising.

There are at least two other examples of effective collaboration in the U.S. newspaper industry and both of them are co-operatives, rather than for-profit ventures such as NCN and News Right. They are The Associated Press and the PAGE Co-operative. The ubiquitous AP is owned by the U.S. dailies who have joined it. PAGE is a Pennsylvania-based buying co-operative comprised mostly of smaller, family-owned newspapers. Typically, co-operatives do not compete with their owners by the nature of their business, and that was true of The AP for most of its 168-year existence. But The AP began selling its news report to non-member broadcasters in the middle of the 20th century, and in the mid-1990s it started selling its report to online services like Google and Yahoo, effectively strengthening the ability of digital platforms to outpace newspaper websites as online purveyors of news. Today, less than a quarter of The AP’s revenue is said to come from newspaper member assessments.

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