Legal Insurrection + Donation Buttons = ?

On Thursday, William Jacobson visited our class and discussed his blog, Legal Insurrection. During his presentation, a few students asked him questions regarding his blog's revenue model. While a small section of the right sidebar is devoted to garnering financial support from readers, the donate section is relatively hidden on the site; it appears at least a quarter of the way down the page and takes up only about an inch and a half of vertical screen space.

The donation buttons on other blogs and independent outlets are certainly displayed more prominently. Democracy Now! highlights its donations by making a separate tab for it in the top navigation bar; it's the only tab with a red background. A large green "DONATE" button graces the very top of Brave New Foundation's sidebar.

Darren Rowse at ProBlogger suggests that donation buttons are rarely successful on blogs, and their success is dependent on three criteria:

• a very large readership – a small % will always be willing to donate but to get enough to live off you’d need a large readership
• a very loyal readership – obsessed readers who simply couldn’t live without the blog who were willing to dip into their own pockets to keep it running. Of course to get this high loyalty you need to provide readers with something that they can’t live without whether that be some kind of service or fulfillment of a need of some kind.
• no other forms of income – I think sites with lots of other income streams (advertising, affiliate programs) would be likely to see a decreased chance of readers contributing as there would be a perception that the blog was already making money

Perhaps the third point is most important, especially in the case of Legal Insurrection. Having an advertisement above the fold, as well as a few advertisements placed down the right sidebar, would certainly clue readers in to the blog's revenue model. This, in turn, might make them slightly less likely to financially support the blog.

I think that Jacobson is smart for placing his donation buttons so subtly on his blog; rather than throwing the idea of donations in the faces of his audience, readers can take notice of the blog's revenue model and then decide for themselves if they'd like to dish out cash.

Paywalls: New Adopters and "Sandbag Strategies"

In Tuesday's class, we talked extensively about paywalls, a way in which news websites restrict access to their content by "forcing" users to purchase an online subscription. As it turns out, it's simple to work around the block.

The New York Times may be the most well-known newspaper to enable the paywall blockade, and based on an article posted yesterday on Forbes, they might finally be reaping benefits: the Times reported that their home delivery circulation rose 0.2% over the last six months. According to the paper, this is the first time that circulation has increased in over five years.

Their success seems to be encouraging other news outlets to adopt a similar model. In an article posted yesterday on Fox 9 News, the Star Tribune — a newspaper that reportedly draws in 2.3 million readers to its website each month — has enacted a 20-article paywall, as well.

Mathew Ingram at Gigaom calls these paywalls "sandbag strategies" in that their ultimate goal is to increase print circulation and, in turn, hike up advertising prices:

...The biggest knock against the paywall is that it has virtually nothing to do with actually taking advantage of the digital world in any concrete way. It’s just charging people nickels and dimes for their paper, the way the NYT and other newspapers have for a century and a half or so. In that sense, it’s not really a strategy at all; it’s more like a line of sandbags designed to shore up the print business and squeeze as much money out of it as possible as it declines. A wise move? Perhaps. Something to get excited about? No. 

Police Brutality and YouTube

Earlier this evening, a friend of mine posted this transparency report from Google on his Facebook page. I was extremely intrigued when I read one of the bulleted items on the page:

Observations on Content Removal Requests

• We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests.

The fact that YouTube did not comply with law enforcements' requests is a huge victory for independent journalism. We've already heard cases this semester of citizen journalists capturing unethical or illegal police behavior; YouTube was often responsible for bringing the travesties to light. Kudos to the video-sharing website for protecting citizen and independent journalists over government and law enforcement agencies. Let's hope that these priorities remain even after YouTube begins offering mainstream-like television on its website next year.

YouTube Jumping Ship to Mainstream Media?

Google has announced that its video website, YouTube, will soon add over 100 channels of original television programming. The company promises big names in its lineup, including Madonna, Jay-Z, and Ashton Kutcher. According to the Wall Street Journal article, the new television programs will offer over 25 hours of original programming, all available for free to Internet users.

YouTube's expansion into mainstream television begs to question if — and how — the website will change for citizen and independent journalists. Currently, YouTube allows anyone to post videos; those that go viral are featured on YouTube's homepage. This, in turn, exponentially increases the video's exposure. The formula has brought about immense social change in the past.

With YouTube pushing for more professional, mainstream television, will their homepage be infiltrated with sponsored programs, leaving average individuals without the opportunity to be seen and heard? Will YouTube convert to the "mullet strategy" — like the one used by the Huffington Post — where professional videos will be housed on the homepage and amateur videos will be hidden within the site? We won't know for certain until the channels launch next year, but I would bet that YouTube will certainly place priority on its multi-million dollar television deals over its non-profit posters.

Social Media Shutdown?

In today's class, we viewed a YouTube video of Asmaa Mahfouz, an Egyptian woman who posted a viral YouTube video calling for protestors to gather against Mubarak in Tahrir Square on January 25, 2011. Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now!, shows clips from the video on her program:

In class, we compared Mahfouz's video with "Common Sense," a pamphlet distributed by Thomas Paine in 1776 that condemned the British monarchy. There are certainly similarities, but perhaps the biggest difference is the way in which the protestors' information was delivered. While Paine relied on pamphlets to spread awareness of liberty, today's technology — such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, for example — allows for viral videos and mass consumption at a much more rapid rate.

Brian Rank raised an interesting question in class: What would happen if these social media outlets were shut down in an effort to prevent viral videos from reaching the masses?

The shutdown is not impossible. In 2009, China shut down access to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Blogger immediately before the 20th Anniversary of the massacres at Tiananmen Square. In January 2011, Egypt shut down "virtually all internet access" in an effort to control Mubarak's protestors. Libya, too, shut down internet access in February 2011 to keep protestors at bay.

According to an August 13, 2011 article on Wired, Britain is also considering a legal clause that allows the government to shut down social media websites in times of crisis. The reason, according to British Prime Minister David Cameron, is that social media often "[amplifies] panic, [spreads] misinformation and [causes] already-stretched police communications channels to be overloaded by people worried about some rumor they’ve read online."

It will be interesting to see how quickly a new method of dispersing information is developed in the event that the public is permanently disabled from using social media. In fact, I would bet that some of today's leading independent journalists have already considered this scenario. For now, we can only hope that our government does not follow along in other countries' footsteps.

The Legacy of George Seldes

After reading Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon's article, "Press Critic George Seldes Leaves a Legacy of Courage," I was intrigued by Seldes' determination as an independent journalist in the 1900s. The article mentions Seldes' attacks on the biggest press barons of the decade, including the well known William Randolph Hearst, for their "assisting [of] Hitler, Mussolini and Spain's Gen. Francisco Franco."

I searched YouTube and found an interesting video interview with Seldes that was filmed in January 1983. In it, the independent journalist discloses the exact role of the mainstream media in aiding Hitler.

It's fascinating to hear this account directly from Seldes, and I'm both impressed and inspired by his courage as an independent journalist. Based on our class discussions, it is evident that today's indy media journalists are aspiring to be — whether aware of it or not — in the same realm of Seldes in regards to publishing news free of government influence. I can only hope that this trend continues as our technology and resources evolve.

The Big Brothers of Blogging

An alarming article from the New York Times tells the shocking story of police officers hunting down French citizen Dominique Broueilh for commenting on a video clip of a French cabinet official with the simple words, "Oh, the liar."

It's a classic case of censorship and overwhelming government control, but its a paragraph that appears further into the story that really caught my attention:

Politicians here have filed lawsuits like Ms. Morano’s, organized in-house Internet surveillance teams — Mr. Sarkozy receives a nightly report detailing the day’s online chatter — and roundly denounced the Web as a breeding ground for disinformation.

Internet surveillance teams? Nightly reports of online chatter? While the Web seems to be, at least for now, the French government's only target, it's terrifying to think about where these beginnings of government surveillance could lead to in the coming years. I can only hope that bloggers stay brave to keep it from further spiraling out of control.