Blogs May 21, 2009 at 11:27 am

Comments

1
That was one fabulous report. Thank you, sir.

P.S. The manchild in the globe costume could use a little more eyebrow.
2
Second. This is fabulous. It's like I was there. That slide does look like a uterus.

So what do you think? Will it work? Is the Times watching? Are they all drinking the KoolAid?
3
Was it necessary to make this post 8 or 9 page-clicks long?
4
Dave Horsey has so sold out. He's a non-union scab at the union-busting seattle-pi. I use to click on the pi from time to time NEVER AGAIN.
5
I miss Susan Paynter!
6
MySeattlePets really needs a new font. Ew.
7
Somehow left off of the invite list? You're a journalist joke and don't deserve to be at the big kids table.

Get over yourself.
8
How many onlinePI salaries could have been paid with the money that went into this event?
9
Nice report, Eli.
10
it would have been better i think had they had this event for, i don't know, the advertisers and not partners and wanna-be bloggers. it strikes me that those people are already sold otherwise they wouldn't be partners.

@PedestrianMe

i agree completely. nothing more than a lot of self-congratulatory pats on the back. if this kind of event is any example of how they spend their budgets it's no wonder their print business wasn't profitable.
11
Soooo, if I'm reading what's between the lines here correctly, all SeattlePI.com really needs to do to get massive page-hit counts, and thus generate swimming pools full of advertising revenue for Hearst Corp. is to throw up thousands of images of anorexic runway models and adorable pets and - problem solved!
12


User-generated? So 89% of it will be crap.
13
Amazing report.

Too bad someone forgot how to use spill pages to put all but the first image and text below the fold, though ...

(rubs his wrist from hitting page down so many times)
14
Ah, corporate America. Pretty fucking nauseating, isn't it?
15
It's the bright shiny future of infotainment!
16
There is nothing new or innovative about the P-I's approach to the web. Forgive me if I'm lacking the appropriate tech or journalism lingo.

Why reinvent the wheel? Why duplicate work? I'm surprised that someone in local media isn't establishing revenue-sharing partnerships with the hyper-local blogs and creating a "local wire service" - aggregating and synthesizing news from those sites, reselling it, trading links, and then spending their cash on long-term coverage/investigations, arts coverage, sports, etc.

Maybe someone already tried it. Maybe it sucked. Or maybe everyone is too afraid of losing money or credit to try it and so they waste their resources on spinning their wheels.
17
The answer is simple. Gator Up!
18
Good report, Eli. As the "cartoonist-turned-ad-salesman," let me just add a couple of thoughts. In the days of big newspaper profits, reporters could happily forget the fact that they were part of a business that depended on selling ads to pay for all the journalism. That was especially true at the P-I where all the commerce was conducted by the Times Company, far away from our newsroom

We see where that got us. Most of my P-I friends and colleagues are now unemployed and the newspaper to which I devoted my career is gone. Those few of us who remain at the print P-I's successor, seattlepi.com, are cheering for the new business model and hoping it works. Why? Because the old business model is dead and newspapers are expiring all over the country. Meanwhile, no one has figured out how to make money doing journalism online. Maybe Hearst has figured out something that will pay off. If so, good for them. That money will be what pays for the journalism of the future.

And it's not all cats and fashion shows. Remember, the presentation the other night was aimed at ad exec's who care about page views, not quality journalism. If all those people looking at pictures from beauty pageants motivate businesses to buy the ads that pay for our journalism, that's fine with me. There is nothing new about this. Newspapers have always run comics and gossip columns and crossword puzzles and celebrity photos to entertain readers. Investigative journalism has never made money; it's the ads that pay for the investigative journalism.

Yes, I'm sorry the old model died. I love newspapers. But if we can figure out a new way to pay for journalism online here at seattlepi.com, that's an exciting prospect. Maybe it can be a model for other cities. And maybe the journalists of the future will have a place to do good work and actually get paid for it.
19
I think David Horsey should stick to drawing cartoons and skip the writing part. Writing an opinion piece that actually means something requires a certain amount of intelligence, logic and ability to go beyond the trite. The latter, especially, has always been beyond David's capabilities.

20
David Horsey rocks
21
ew. it's just that... ewww.
22
As Jacob Metcalf's actual girlfriend, I'd like to just say that yes, the "man-date" moment was actually approve and endorsed by the ministry of hannie. I say this only to not raise speculation by others who like to assassinate character in our county. Good job on the article Eli, and I'm not saying that to "suck up" but actually to state that I thought it was well written. However, as a blogger myself, I do have to request a "more" tag in there because yea, let your readers decide if they want to read your full text or not. My other half may tend to disagree with me on that theory, but it's one I use often.

Last but not least, to "still non". If you can't say anything nice at all, don't bother submitting a comment. I'm 39 and have been reading the Stranger since I was little. Surely their staff deserves a seat to hear about Seattlepi.com rising from the ashes and to report on it.
23
Am I the only one that just sees crappy dot com hype and no substance from this entire PI thing?
That and massive 'late to the party', Ric Romero style glib hype.

Web Sites Popular Due To Photos of Pets! And You Can Send Yours In Too! Full Report At 11
24
Certaindoom: No, me too. This is rather eerily frightening if it's what the future is going to look like.
25
Mr. Horsey, with all due respect, you are kidding yourself. And I say this as a fan of yours.

Are you not disappointed by the utter lack of integrity in all of this? Do you ever fear for your own integrity because of this? Quality journalism exists for its own sake, and you can call me naive if you want to, but if the focus is on money and selling ad space to advertisers...whatever happened to the idea of keeping marketing and sales separate from the journalists? Now you're out there schilling for sales. It's not a pretty sight.

Again, I say all of that as a fan of yours, and with the utmost respect. I would just hate to see you (and quality journalists like yourself) lose their souls in the migration to a new media, which I agree is coming and hasn't been handled well by traditional print media. But I'm sorry, in just the last two months of SeattlePI going online only, quality has slipped dramatically, both in terms of editing and content. Infotainment seems to be the future at seattlepi.com.

Remember who you really are, and please don't become an infotainer, for your own sake and for ours.
26
I've worked in the news industry as a web dev since 1998 and have watched as management, execs, newsrooms and ad depts. have gone from outright hostility toward the idea of "giving it away free" online to reluctantly accepting their fate. The PI has the right attitude... for 2002. Sadly, they're way behind things now and frankly, it's too little, too late. Nifty charts and misty-eyed analogies about a new day dawning doesn't change the fact that a majority of the news industry buried its head in the sand at the wrong time. Personally, I think few if any of the existing brands will still exist 10 years form now. Their power will be usurped, deserved so, by smaller, faster, smarter sites and new ideas.
27
"Quality journalism exists for its own sake, and you can call me naive if you want to, but if the focus is on money and selling ad space to advertisers...whatever happened to the idea of keeping marketing and sales separate from the journalists? Now you're out there schilling for sales. It's not a pretty sight."

---- That sort of arrogance is why newspaper journalism is dying. Journalism "for its own sake" is not sustainable. Call money evil all you want. But let's see you give up your paycheck and do something for its own sake before you throw stones. I'm glad that Horsey is proud of his work and wanting to sell it. This is capitalism. This is America. Lots of different voices with different reasons for existing is how our forefathers imagined it.

Hat's off to SeattlePI.com and all the other online sites trying to make it work.

And @26 -- you're clueless. People will not pay for news. They just won't. If the NYTimes starts charging for their "quality journalism," it will just make it easier for free sites to grow and compete.

The under-30 crowd has never known what it's like to pay for news. And they're not going to magically change their habits as they get older.

Slog: Now that I'd pay for.

Please wait...

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