Through an Influx Insights blog post I found my way to a University of Vienna study that found that when viewing art, people could register content within 10ms, and style within 50ms. This result is particularly interesting since conventional wisdom held that visual or sensory features - style - would be processed first. Needless to say, this has some real significance for those tasked with designing web pages that pull in their intended target users.

Interestingly enough, this research has been interpreted in two, somewhat opposing, ways. Influx believes that “It shows that art directors and designers have less time than we originally thought to capture attention and stop people from clicking away with their remote button or mouse.” Others, however, see in it proof that “Web design is not that important.”

In explaining why “web design is not that important,” Graham Jones warns against the common mistake of creating a beautiful design that turns out not to fit the content. I would argue, however, that this is exactly why design is important. A look at any content rich web site (e.g. media companies) shows how difficult it is to effectively convey just what content is available. These sites truly present a design challenge. Too many site producers believe that the principle of form following function means that once you’ve decided on the function, the form will naturally follow with little creative effort. In fact, it’s how the function is followed that makes all the difference. A spare design such as that of Google’s home page closely follows function, but it most certainly is design.

The evidence continues to roll in that the gateway to hyperlocal news and information is the humble map. Once the bane of road tripping wives everywhere, more and more online information is accessed through a map interface. Two more cases in point are SpotCrime and a new feature on Google Earth.

SpotCrime is another entrant in the crime map sweepstakes although it makes a critical mistake by not accepting zip codes in the “Address Search” box. The site is a bit cheesy, but it’s mere existence as a national site suggests that it’s getting easier to pull in this kind of information all the time.

Google Earth, meanwhile, has begun plotting the location of Google’s continuously updated index of news stories. Once again, Google attacks local media organizations on their home turf. This must have been quite an undertaking for Google to plot stories worldwide, but it would be less so for local newspapers to plot their own local stories.

More and more, this seems to prove true: if you see a map, it’s local.

Technorati Tags: maps hyperlocal

The idea that non-profit foundations, or even the government, should step in to fund news organizations has been gaining some currency among those thinking about the future of news. Often, NPR and PBS are held up as models of what this new world could look like. Last week, however, we learned more about some cracks forming in the foundations of those organizations.

The New York Times just published an article discussing problems with funding of the “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS. The article states that “The financial squeeze was precipitated last summer when Archer Daniels Midland ended its 14-year sponsorship of the program. That sponsorship provided nearly $4 million (and some years as much as $7 million) of the program’s yearly budget, which varies from $26 million to $28 million.” So, the first thing that is obvious from this story is that despite receiving government, foundation, and donor money, a major component of PBS funding is still advertising. In fact, for those worried about the integrity of journalism, this may be the worst of all worlds - to the usual coverage pressure that advertisers occasionally exert is added the more constant pressure of foundations and government. Government funding, of course, should be anathema to those concerned about the First Amendment, since freedom from government influence is exactly what the amendment is meant to prevent.

An interesting example of this new kind of influence can be found in ProPublica, a new investigative news organization funded by Herbert M. and Marion O. Sandler. Describing itself as “an independent, non-profit newsroom that will produce investigative journalism in the public interest,” ProPublica’s major funders, the Sandlers are large Democratic Party and MoveOn.org donors. This fact prompted an article in Slate questioning the Sandlers’ motives. To be sure, it’s the fact that ProPublica claims it will provide unbiased reporting while being funded by donors with a cause that causes concern, not simply the possibility of a news organization with a mission. It may be that the Sandlers can stay out of coverage decisions, but their biases should still be made clear, particularly given the self-importance the organization attaches to itself. Transparency is key.

The fact is, they who hold the purse strings control the news, be they private owners, donors, or governments. Among those three choices, I prefer private owners. Owners want one thing - they want to make money. And they realize that compromising their journalistic integrity will lower the value of their investment (that integrity, by the way, may mean staying true to a transparent bias, as in the case of the Guardian). The worry today, of course, is that those owners will decide that reporting the news no longer pays, but we’ve yet to see any examples of that happening. Those who believe there is no value in that mission sell, and they’ve so far been able to find willing buyers (although at steadily decreasing prices). We need to stop worrying about how to continue funding the way we’ve done reporting in the past, and start thinking about how to make that reporting engaging and valuable in the present and future.

Markus Prior, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton presented some interesting work he did trying to understand if news consumption has changed over the past several decades. We often hear the assertion that people are just consuming less news these days, compounding the problems faced by newspapers. This work is the first I’ve seen to make a real attempt at understanding that assertion.

Markus began his presentation with a chart showing the 50% decline in the network news audience between 1980 and 2005. He followed it, however, with a chart showing a large increase in consumption of cable news when measured by minutes, data which defy conventional wisdom. He noted the impossibility of determining total news consumption, but said that while consumption of paid news is down, overall consumption may very well be up.

What Markus found through his work,though, is that fewer Americans consume more news. When the total population suddenly had more choices (through cable, niche publications, the internet, etc.) those who previously only consumed news because nothing else was available, now filled their time with other types of information and entertainment.

Markus measured a “Relative Entertainment Preference” by asking people what kind of content they like. He found that consumption of news can vary even in the absence of a change in the REP. In other words, it was a change in environment that caused the change in consumption. In a low choice environment more people consumed news, in a high choice environment, less. Given the greater choice (particularly for those with access to new media), those who always were news junkies, are now able to consume even more and are all the more knowledgeable as a result. They are also more likely to vote. He also noted that the population of news junkies was small (he guessed 15 to 20%) and were demographically not very different form the rest of the population. He also said that they were very partisan, but found that this was mainly because those people who were more moderate tended to be pulled away from the news consuming group as choice increased.

Left unanswered in the research was where those non-news junkies went to spend their time. Was it on local news perhaps (since news was here defined as mostly national and international) ? Somewhere else? This is an important question for news companies since finding out how to satisfy those consumers with less interest in news can provide a good foundation on which to expend the resources needed to do that kind of reporting valued by the news junkies. The research may also suggest that more opinionated news may be more appealing to hardcore news types.

In a fine keynote talk by David Robinson I was particularly struck by his description of aggregators (a term he finds less than satisfying) as “asset managers.”

Matthew Hurst noted that content creation is now associated with individuals, not institutions. He also pointed out that data tools such as those he was demonstrating allow consumers to test the assertions of journalists.

Kevin Anderson, a huge Twitter fan, discussed its uses in both social and journalistic situations. He also noted that social networking tools can allow a user to explore a Web site through someone else’s eyes (e.g. seeing what your friends are reading).

Dave Blei explained some of his work uncovering and organizing hidden topical patterns in text. He looked at Daily Kos and Red State to see what topics are found in each and how they differ from each other. He also used dynamic analysis to see how words we use in similar ways change over time. Moving from the 19th century to the 21st we saw words such as “machine,” “engine,” and “steam” replaced by “device” and “silicon.” He also said that he felt it seems like you need someone with expertise in front of these kinds of tools.

JD Lasica made some predictions for the future, which included continued trivialization of news by traditional media, the demise of half of all dailies within 15 years (yikes!), and the rise of opinion, aggregators, niche, and hyperlocal news. He also suggested some approaches for news organizations, which included viewing news as a process or service, not as a finished product.

Ed Tenner discussed the softening of respect for professional journalism and noted some principles for news organizations to follow:

• Emphasise your comparative advantage
• The best new ideas will come from the “outside in.”

He also thought the best source of hope is the possible reversibility of online advertising trends - “what goes down, can come up.”

Not live blogging, but some quick hits from today’s presentations.

Dan Gillmore began with a nice discussion of citizen-media, noting the role of trust and reputation.

Steve Boriss talked about four “advances” that actually set news back:

• The steam engine was harnessed to the printing press (fewer voices because investment was needed to really be heard)
• The Associated Press (one source for international and national news)
• Modern journalism (Lippman’s ideas turned journalism into a science removing the competition of ideas)
• Broadcasting (now government could regulate news)

He said the Internet is now undermining these “advances.” Other points Steve made included the idea that audiences will not change - they are still mostly observers (with some exceptions) and will want experts to create; social media has been oversold; so has citizen journalism.

Reihan Salam from The Atlantic made an interesting point about audiences taking ownership of publications, as well as creating publications.

The second session was the one in which I participated and, since it dealt with the economics of news, revolved at least partly around concerns that the industry will no longe be able to produce the kind of investigative and other news that results from “real journalism.” Eric Alterman was quite pessimistic on this point while Gordon Crovitz and I were more optimistic. This conversation led to a question about how we can create more demand for news. This prompted me to add that I could think of no other product with which the product managers sit around wondering how to independently create demand for their product instead of thinking about how to improve their product to the point where demand rises. I suggested that this kind of hand-wringing gets in the way of creating a better news product. (I suspect Eric may have disagreed!)

Finally, there was some discussion of government funding for ailing media companies, a notion with which Gordon and I disagreed, while Eric thought it merited some consideration.

Busy days have led to incredibly light posting, but I’m headed to Princeton University for the Future of News workshop. Hosted by the Center for Information Technology Policy, the workshop covers two days (May 14th and 15th) with a schedule of four panels and two featured talks. I’ll be on the “Economics of News” panel with Gordon Crovitz and Eric Alterman. I’m really looking forward to the event and assuming that I don’t get sucked in too deeply, I’ll try to live-blog at least some of the panels.