Welcome to the Digital World?

Buck is right ... of course (with a big-time exception or two).

User retention per session on videos is only valuable if completion rates are kept. (The Adobe Digital Marketing Suite does, as do others.)

Completion rates of videos are directly linked to engaging users for longer sessions and can give you a window into what content keeps users on the site longer.

But it can be one HUGE moving target and a tough momentum to keep.

 

Thanks, folks.

I am still wrapping my head around it, but there are some great points here.

 

I thought the memo had some good ideas ... except this line:

Just what we need, along with anonymous, hateful reader comments on local issues ... unscientific poll data that those trolls can use to "prove" their point.

Online polls are the useless, modern version of those lame-ass photo poll questions.

 

The problem with the memo is that many beat writers figured this stuff out on their own three years ago. Many beat writers could have written that memo themselves three years ago. It is 2012. Any news organization that sends out a memo that begins, "The goal is to build audience on [our website] by being the No. 1 place the market goes for news and information" is a news organization that is, at best, three years behind. The question many reporters want to know, the question that management should be addressing, is how the "Portrait of a Digital Day" can be applied in a practical sense so that it increases revenue.

 

Exactly. This, I think, is a major issue in this business right now, and a significant reason why many are getting out (or staying out, if they are already out) of the industry.

Many of us have a great work ethic -- you kind of have to, to have any success in this business -- but all of this is simply too much to ask of someone, and to ask it, basically, around the clock, for the compensation most reporters receive.

To put it bluntly: It just isn't worth all the time, work, effort and stress.

If the people asking it of reporters actually had to do it all, well...it would probably never get done at all.

I am one of those people who would love to know how much time others actually spend looking at videos, and, company-wise, how much revenue is actually brought in from them.

Daemon makes a good point in that the important thing in all of this is revenue, and I'm not sure any of this is the answer to that question.

 

I will say this: My publisher was driving to work and noticed that the work on the pillars in front of the high school was under way, and he stopped and took pictures.

 

He should give himself a raise.

 

I'll be honest ... I don't have much of a problem with most of that.

Turtle is right, though, at least in terms of sports that have rights agreements.

There's going to be pushback on the video thing. Schools/associations are going to get more restrictive. Schools/associations are originating their own content, and they're going to protect it by giving it exclusivity.

 

I'll bet he wouldn't have done that 10 years ago.

 

With some publisher, you would be right, but he's a third-generation, small-town publisher with good news sense.

 

What are the completion rates for online videos?

Frankly, when I click on a video it's generally by mistake. I just want to read the damn story, and I quickly close the page in disgust if it starts forcing me to watch video.

But I am not every user.

 

I rarely watch videos on newspaper sites. I'm not adverse to learning how to take said videos and posting them myself, but I've received zero training from my company on using video editing software, etc. It's kind of silly for companies to expect you do take videos, then say, 'here's an iPhone, go get 'em!' without giving you some sort of direction on what makes good video and how to edit something down to something that people will watch. No one wants to watch a six-minute interview with someone.

The thing that saddens me the most about the "digital world" is that there is absolutely no room for enterprise any more. There is so much going on with the constantly updating of Twitter and blogs and stories, etc., that there is no in-season room to disconnect for a couple of days to do the proper research, sourcing and writing that a good enterprise piece requires. And even if you write it well, there's often not enough room in the paper to fit it in. I miss writing good long form pieces.