Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: ffunnell Up!

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  • Christopher Dempsey,

    With regards to the Kiwiblog, Pundit, PA connurbation I think the thing to realise is that political discourse and debate works best for democracy as a whole when both sides of the debate talk to each other.

    I know that every now and then Russell turns up on Kiwiblog (not sure about vice versa) but in general this is healthy. I know that David also posts to The Standard - which is also good. David himself is always completely polite an inclusive to everybody so notwithstanding his differing political views I cannot see any harm in a bi-partisan political discussion advertising network

    Thanks Alastair for your informative post.

    I am in complete agreement regarding political discourse working for democracy by being able to talk to each other, but as I say, Kiwiblog has to severely lift its game.

    David's links to Mr Cameron Slater, that fine purveyor of 'commentary', and David's ability to attract wing-nuts to his site are the two main reasons why I question Kiwiblog being in the ffunnell lineup.

    It is merely my observation of course and all parties to the agreement are entirely free to do whatever they like.

    Parnell / Tamaki-Auckland… • Since Sep 2008 • 659 posts Report Reply

  • Alastair Thompson,

    Christopher,

    I expect that the center right's toleration of wingnut sentiment is roughly the equivalent of the center left's toleration of the occasional trotskyite. We live in a spectrum of political viewpoints.

    regards
    Alastair

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 220 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth Ward,

    Apropos of nothing, Mr Brown looks so lovely in CoverFlow:
    http://tvnz.co.nz/tv (newly launched TVNZ site that seems to be getting caned at the moment so bear with it)

    Auckland, NZ • Since Mar 2007 • 1727 posts Report Reply

  • James Green,

    The lower case double f in ffunnell makes my heart sing.

    But they don't have TeX to get lower case double ffs with ligature.

    Limerick, Ireland • Since Nov 2006 • 703 posts Report Reply

  • James Green,

    Oooh. And in useless wikipedia base trivia, the ampersand & was originally a ligature for the word 'et', which is why you see '&c' for 'etc' in older writing. w00t.

    Limerick, Ireland • Since Nov 2006 • 703 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    I believe Scoop may have defaulted Kiwiblog simply because it has the most traffic. Similar reasoning to them being part of a local web publishers network, in addition to what Al said.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    And ta for the typographic trivia, James.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    I note that ffunnel claims to have an audience of 1.3 million unique browsers/month. There are a bunch of ways to read this claim, but to take it at face value it seems to say that 1.3 million people are reading New Zealand blogs which is absurd. I guess they arrived at the number by taking audiences for scoop, geekzone, PA etc and adding them together, when obviously there's going to be a large crossover between them.

    Presumably the audience size is based on the Nielson Net Ratings - I was interested to see that Nielson have 4.6 million 'unique browsers' visiting TradeMe every month.

    So either a lot of overseas people (like, millions) are using an online auction site for the most geographically isolated country in the world or there's something wrong with Nielson's ratings. I'm not a fancy big city internet expert but I gather 'unique browser' is a highly flawed and misleading metric. I chatted about this with someone who works on the web site at my university - he candidly admitted that 'number of unique browers' tends to overstate visitor numbers by a factor of about 20.

    (I also wonder whether outfits like Nielson track whether my unique browser is running ad-blocking software and pass that information onto their customers.)

    I wish companies like ffunnel the best of luck, but I find the statistics currently being thrown around about online audience size in New Zealand to be literally unbelievable.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    I chatted about this with someone who works on the web site at my university - he candidly admitted that 'number of unique browers' tends to overstate visitor numbers by a factor of about 20.

    I'm guessing he was talking about his own logs. It's always something of a disappointment when you compare your internal stats for unique browsers to Nielsen's, because Nielsen's are invariably considerably lower (although certainly not 20x lower). Nielsen and Google Analytics numbers are generally close in my experience.

    In short, if Nielsen was as far out of whack as you suggest, we wouldn't be able to do the traffic we do.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    So - just to get this straight - you do find it plausible that Scoop and a handful of New Zealand blogs are being read by 1.3 million people, and that TradeMe really has 4.6 million visitors/month?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    New Zealand blogs are being read by 1.3 million people, and that TradeMe really has 4.6 million visitors/month?

    I suppose I'm probably not alone in using one hundred thousand browsers. Very specific needs, you see.

    OTOH, if you're suggesting that Google Analytics may be overstating my readership by a factor of 20, that'd be verging on negative readership and it would depress me somewhat.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Raymond A Francis,

    Great show last night RB, very well done, one of the best I have seen

    One of the great things happening in our country at the moment are the "farmers" markets
    When we go to Dunedin on Saturdays we go an hour ealier just to see the crowds and buy at their market
    And now we have one on Sunday here! Loads of free range pork products but still a good range of healthy local stuff as well

    45' South • Since Nov 2006 • 578 posts Report Reply

  • Christopher Dempsey,

    I believe Scoop may have defaulted Kiwiblog simply because it has the most traffic.

    Quality versus quantity.

    IMHO organisations should be careful lumping the two together - quantity cheapens quality and brand image gets sunk.

    Either group all your quantity products together and market these via specific channels, or all your quality products together via specific channels. Each customer segment has specific requirements in terms of quality or quantity, and one risks losing everybody by mixing the two together.

    Think Toyota / Lexus, or Kim Crawford wines / Crawford Farm wines for example. I'm sure there are plenty more examples.

    Parnell / Tamaki-Auckland… • Since Sep 2008 • 659 posts Report Reply

  • Hilary Stace,

    Re Pundit - excellent response today by Nicky Hagar to the 'stolen emails' Brash-led media beat-up.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    Well, if the claims made by A C Nielsen about Net ratings are anything like the claims they make for television ratings (viewing equates to "Presence in a room where a TV set is on"), then they are just as dubious.


    Go The Chiefs!!!

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    Great show last night RB, very well done, one of the best I have seen

    Yes, it was. It was fascinating to see how firmly TV news folk subscribe to 'pictures' with everything--great for teaching codes & conventions! As one commentator has already has already suggested, "TV news" should be properly regarded as "TV olds"!

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    I thought I'd wait till Monday to link to last night's show in a blog post (today's post is a special topic), but y'all can find the various versions through our spiffy new micro-site in TVNZ's new entertainment site:

    http://tvnz.co.nz/media7

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Alastair Thompson,

    Well,

    Happy to fill you in with some facts regarding readership.

    The 1.3 million Unique Browsers figure is based on Google Analytics across the ffunnell network. It is de-duplicated i.e. users are only recorded once if they read Scoop, Public Address and Kiwiblog and the logs show that they do.

    The de-duplicated NNR numbers for the network are currently being recorded and will likely come in a little lower than Googles when the month ends.

    Forthe fiist three weeks of May we are sitting on 704,000 UBs and 2.4 million pages.

    The difference between Google and NNR is that NNR waits till pages are fully loaded (including all images) before it records a page as being read. Google records the page as read as soon as its tracking pixel is downloaded.

    Since we started recording network traffiic for ffunnell at the end of last year there has been substantial network wide growth and the Google page number is likely to break 4 million shortly.

    Extrapolating the 3 weeks of data we have so far indicates we are looking at 3.2 million NNR impressions in the first month recording.

    By way of comparison funnell has the same number of pages and nearly three times as many UBs as Flossie so far in May. Adhub - which takes in all the former Think Digital network properties plus the websites represented by Shane Bradley's Adhub - has 1.07 million UBs.

    In relation to the question of whether audited UBs overstate audience then the answer is that they probably to a little as lots of people have more than one computer. However as another poster pointed out the Radio Survey, People meters and Audited Reader Circulation figures used by other media forms have just as many and possibly more flaws.

    And yes it is remarkable that a small group of blogs can have an audience of 1.3 million (which is substantiallly larger than that of all NZ newspapers).

    However - and I think this is the point of ffunnell - this is not an ordinary set of blogs. ffiunnell is comprised of the leading innovators in online media - these are successful emerging media companies and they are working together to try to get a share of the growing online advertising pie which at present is dominated by overseas owned corporations. Specifically:

    - Google
    - APN
    - Fairfax (including Trademe)
    - Yahoo
    - MSN
    - Facebook

    in addition many of ffunnell's fellow travellers in the domestic market - in terms of Advertising networks - are also foreign owned.

    ffunnell is all about doing for ourselves things which we know that nobody is going to do for us. And we are delighted to be up and running.

    alastair

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 220 posts Report Reply

  • Alastair Thompson,

    P.S.

    As of tonight (three weeks into the month) In ranking terms by total audience according to NNR ffunnell enters the horse race among publishers at number 10 in terms of UBs - just behind TVNZ and MediaWorks on 986k and 808k UBs respectively.

    On an average daily UBs basis ffunnell is level pegging with MediaWorks (TV3+3News+Radiolive etc) on 60,000 daily UBs.

    Which I suspect some of you may agree is not bad for a "bunch of blogs".

    And before someone else points this out - the above numbers are all total audience size not domestic audience.

    ffunnell has a substantial number of readers overseas - but not a majority. More than half of our traffic comes from NZ.

    According to Google of 1.9 million visits to ffunell websites in the last month. 1 million, or 50% of these were from NZ. These visits averaged 2.62 pages (2.6 million monthly pages) with a healthy 3.5 minute session duration.

    And finally - since this has become the ffunnell statistics reveal - I would note that according to Neilsen's demographic survey ffuinnell's readers are kinda attractive in advertising terms. In addition to being more internet savvy, wealthier and more likely to buy stuff they are also more likely to post to blogs, have their own blogs and be engaged with social media.

    Anyway so to at this point it would be fair to say that as far as ffunnell is concerned - it's all good.

    al

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 220 posts Report Reply

  • Alastair Thompson,

    Go the hurricanes!

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 220 posts Report Reply

  • Alastair Thompson,

    Go the chiefs!

    & the Crusaders

    As for the hurricanes, ouch.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 220 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    I would note that according to Neilsen's demographic survey ffuinnell's readers are kinda attractive in advertising terms. In addition to being more internet savvy, wealthier and more likely to buy stuff they are also more likely to post to blogs, have their own blogs and be engaged with social media.

    Stop it, Alastair, you're embarassing us.

    Am I the only one that finds this idea of "funnell's readers" quite silly? I'm a reader of PAS. I loathe Kiwiblog. Why should I be lumped? Besides, nobody reads ffunnell itself as such, do they?

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    By way of contrast in the US some highly partisan
    online discussion communities remain very strongly separated - Freerepublic and DemocraticUnderground for example - and in being so separated just exacerbate the general levels of misunderstanding.

    There it is. That's what bothers me. If it's a way of increasing your advertising muscle, fine - who cares? But are you saying that you are aiming to increase PAS' interaction with Kiwiblog? As a reader, I sure wouldn't find that desirable.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Am I the only one that finds this idea of "funnell's readers" quite silly? I'm a reader of PAS. I loathe Kiwiblog. Why should I be lumped? Besides, nobody reads ffunnell itself as such, do they?

    What you're seeing in ffunnell is a group of independent publishers aggregating to become relevant to ad agencies, and to try and change the game.

    The alternative is corporate dominance in online media, and less innovation in internet advertising.

    I'm happy to discuss it further, later, but it's Friday night, FFS.

    Oh, and well done the Chiefs.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Alastair Thompson,

    Russb,

    You are correct it is Friday night and late. Gnight.

    Giovani,

    I am pleased you are flattered :) Albeit not in love with the idea of being lumped in with the Kiwiblog audience. Interestingly there are a lot of demographic similarities between the two. DFs audience is slightly older.

    And as for cross readership. Lots of people do read PA and Kiwiblog. Unfortunately a gremlin in the NNR system prevents me from giving you an exact number right now but when everything settles down in statistics land we can give you an exact number.

    And no people don't read ffunnell as such... which I think is the point RB was responding to. But nor do they read Mediaworks.

    And its Gnight from me too.

    al

    P.S. a correction - on a daily reader basis ffunnell on 42k is level pegging with vodafone and 5k ahead of 3News.co.nz on 37k. We are 30% behind Mediaworks as a group which is doing 60k (above I said we were level pegging with Mediaworks - I was confused Google Analytics has us on 60k visitors a day).

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 220 posts Report Reply

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