Tag Archives: New technology
Bloomberg adds Twitter to service
by Chris Roush
Bloomberg L.P. announced Thursday that it is the first financial information platform to integrate real-time Twitter feeds into its service.
Bloomberg Professional service subscribers can now monitor and analyze real-time Twitter updates issued by corporations, executives, government officials, economists, commentators, media outlets and other voices that can influence the financial markets.
Bloomberg classifies tweets by company, asset class, person and topic so that institutional investors, traders, corporate executives and government agencies to track updates related to a specific industry or market, their portfolio holdings or an online personality. In addition to searching and tracking relevant financial tweets, users can also create alerts to monitor for unusual bursts of social media chatter about a company.
“When important news is shared on Twitter, traders and investors need to be able to access it, and validate its importance in order to incorporate that information into their decision making process,” said Jean-Paul Zammitt, head of sales and product development for the Bloomberg Professional service, in a statement. “Bloomberg’s platform now provides this ability, along with the high-quality news, data and analytics our users need and have come to expect from us.”
Read more here. The announcement comes just one day after the Securities and Exchange Commission began allowing companies to post news using social media such as Twitter.
SEC offers social media guidelines
by Liz Hester
Business reporters have long had to monitor Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to stay atop of the news on the companies and executives they cover. Now the Securities and Exchange Commission is weighing in on the practice, offering some clarity for CEOs as well as reporters.
Here are some of the details from the Wall Street Journal:
Executives with itchy Twitter fingers can rest easier after federal securities regulators blessed the use of social-media sites to broadcast market-moving corporate news.
In a ruling that portends changes to how companies communicate with investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that postings on sites such as Facebook and Twitter are just as good as news releases and company websites as long as the companies have told investors which outlets they intend to use.
The move was sparked by an investigation into a July Facebook posting from Netflix Inc. Chief Executive Reed Hastings, who boasted on the social-media site that the streaming-video company had exceeded one billion hours in a month for the first time, sending the firm’s shares higher. The SEC opened the investigation in December to determine if the post had violated rules that bar companies from selectively disclosing information.
“An increasing number of public companies are using social media to communicate with their shareholders and the investing public,” the SEC said in its report Tuesday. “We appreciate the value and prevalence of social media channels in contemporary market communications, and the commission supports companies seeking new ways to communicate.”
The fair-disclosure rule at issue requires companies to disseminate information in a way that wouldn’t be expected to give an advantage to one group of investors over another. The SEC has said that filing a form, known as an 8-K, or holding an earnings call are both ways to ensure compliance with the regulation.
In 2008, the SEC said that companies could use their corporate home pages, under certain circumstances, to disseminate sensitive information.
The New York Times points out that the SEC may be loosening its standards on social media.
Now, the S.E.C. seems to be relaxing its stance.
After an investigation of several months, regulators said that companies could treat social media as legitimate outlets for communication, much like corporate Web sites or the agency’s own public filing system called Edgar. The catch is that corporations have to make clear which Twitter feeds or Facebook pages will serve as potential outlets for announcements.
“They did a really good job of splitting the baby,” said Thomas A. Sporkin, a former S.E.C. enforcement official and now a partner at Buckley Sandler.
In developing its rules, the agency also let Mr. Hastings avoid sanctions for his Facebook post. Neither the chief executive nor Netflix incurred any penalties after receiving a Wells notice from the agency in December.
Instead, the regulator issued what is known as a report of investigation, used on the rare occasion when it wants to issue broad guidance from a specific investigation. As part of its release, the agency reiterated its goal for Reg FD was making sure investors received information at the same time.
“One set of shareholders should not be able to get a jump on other shareholders just because the company is selectively disclosing important information,” George S. Canellos, the agency’s acting enforcement chief, said Tuesday in a statement. “Most social media are perfectly suitable methods for communicating with investors, but not if the access is restricted or if investors don’t know that’s where they need to turn to get the latest news.”
As Forbes points out, it might be a step forward, but the SEC has a ways to go.
The clarification updates existing wording, Regulation Fair Disclosure, that sanctioned corporate websites as an appropriate means to distribute information. The update will probably force links to corporate Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to quickly appear prominently on investor-relations pages. Else businesses with tweet-happy executive could soon run afoul of regulators.
While the SEC seems intent on entering the 21st century, if at a belated pace, it still took the regulators about 20 minutes to tweet a press release about the regulatory update. So much for simultaneous disclosure.
The FT’s secret weapon is data
by Chris Roush
Lauren Indvik of Mashable writes Tuesday about The Financial Times, which is growing its online and digital presence by closing watching the numbers.
Indvik writes, “The FT was well ahead of this trend, introducing a metered access model in 2007. Today, subscriptions make up more than half of the FT Group’s revenue, while advertising only accounts for 39%, down from 52% in 2008. At the FT specifically, advertising once made up as much as 70% of yearly revenue. This year, the paper expects to generate more money from subscriptions than from advertising.
“‘That’s a big deal in the transformation of our business model,’ John Ridding, CEO of the FT, said in a sit-down interview at Pearson’s U.S. headquarters last month. Ridding joined the FT from the editorial side, reporting abroad from Paris and Korea before taking on a series of executive positions, including editor and publisher of FT Asia. He was named chief executive of the paper in 2006, assuming the CEO role of the entire FT Group for the first time this month.
“I asked Ridding how the FT was able to increase its subscriber levels by more than a quarter in the last five years. ‘It’s sort of a combination of art and science,’ he says. ‘Five or six years ago we started a new media model, charging for access through a metered system. When we started doing that, it was primarily to build a revenue stream online, but probably what was more important over time was the data and customer insight that that gave us. That’s what transformed the business,’ he says.
“Looking through some of the reader data — the FT‘s data team now numbers more than 30 across three groups — the FT was able to recognize the kinds of patterns readers display before purchasing subscriptions. ‘We would see the sort of articles they were reading and the frequency they were reading those articles, for instance, and we began to map those,’ Ridding explains. ‘People do behave in predictable ways.’”
Read more here.
Financial Times launching new app for iPad
by Chris Roush
FT.com managing editor Robert Shrimsley previews the changes to the paper’s iPad application in this video:
The WSJ app for reporters shooting video with phones
by Chris Roush
Caroline O’Donovan of The Nieman Journalism Lab writes Thursday about a proprietary application developed for Wall Street Journal reporters that allows them to shoot videos for the business newspaper’s website using their phones.
O’Donovan writes, “The Wall Street Journal approached Downing with the idea for a proprietary app that reporters could use as a news gathering tool. With the addition of some analytics tools and a centralized management function that allows editors to quickly vet clips before they’re published, that became WorldStream, which we wrote about in August.
“‘Consumer behavior has become much more accustomed to consuming the news they want as it happens,’ says Downing. ‘The WSJ was trying to be much more in line with real-time news and real-time publishing.’
“More than half a year later, how’s WorldStream working out? The Journal seems pretty happy. On the business side, WorldStream point man and WSJ deputy editor of video Mark Scheffler describes the project as a ‘destination but also a clearinghouse.’ While all of the WSJ’s mobile videos are first published to the feed, many go on to live second lives across a wide variety of platforms. Some clips follow reporters to live broadcast appearances, while others are embedded into article pages and blogs. Andy Regal, the Journal’s head of video production, said that they don’t break out WorldStream views from the newspaper’s overall video numbers, which he said total between 30 and 35 million streams per month.
“That kind of traffic across platforms draws the attention of advertisers. The WSJ says video ads generate ‘premium’ rates, meaning somewhere around $40 to $60 CPM. Says Tim Ware, WSJ director of mobile sales, of the Journal’s broader video strategy: ‘We’re very bullish on the growth of WSJ Live this fiscal year, and thus the growth in video ad revenue. We’re also starting to contemplate some one-off sponsorships within our overarching video coverage of select events and stories.’ (After spending about a total of about an hour on WorldStream, however, I only saw one ad — for a ‘smart document solutions’ company — repeated about a half dozen times.)”
Read more here.
Bloomberg seeks to distribute its video content
by Chris Roush
Mike Shields of Adweek writes about how Bloomberg TV is now seeking arrangements to distribute the video it produces daily.
Shields writes, “Over the past year plus, the company has formally established a ‘digital video desk’ aimed at cranking up production and speeding workflow. Berend was brought on last year to start bringing digital thinking into nearly every TV production decision. His team started churning out more originals to populate a new video section on the Bloomberg.com. And Bloomberg has ramped up its syndication business, pushing out Web videos to local stations and newspapers that already run the company’s text news content.
“The numbers look good so far. According to internal data, Bloomberg.com’s unique users were up 14 percent in January at 14.5 million. Video views are up 148 percent, netting out at 17.3 million in January. Berend and his team crank out over 200 clips a day. Per Morse, a Murdoch video today ‘would be up in seconds.’
“Part of that growth is driven by better systems, technology and the company’s overall philosophy. But it’s also the result in rethinking what Bloomberg looks like (hence the alligator conversation from earlier).
“According to Berend, sitting in a batcave-like editing lair away from the intense cameras-everywhere newsroom bustle, business news has generally lacked creativity, or even basic TV storytelling skills. And on the flip side, the Web was treated as a medium that was almost supposed to look amateurish.”
Read more here.
Is LinkedIn’s future business television?
by Chris Roush
Owen Thomas writes for Business Insider about how LinkedIn could be a competitor to CNBC in the future by getting into televised business news and information.
Thomas writes, “At the Ignition Mobile conference in San Francisco Thursday, Nishar suggested that in 10 years, when you walk into a room with a television in the morning before you go to work, you won’t turn on a TV set and listen to an anchor read headlines selected by a producer.
“Instead, you’ll see all the news you need to know from your network — much as you get from LinkedIn Today, the professional network’s personalized news service, on its website and mobile app today.
“Nishar pointed out that we’re already watching television on 4-inch screens — smartphones — and 22-inch screens—monitors attached to our computers.”
Reuters introduces new apps for iPhones, iPads
by Chris Roush
Reuters has launched new applications for the iPhone and iPad.
Dianna Dilworth at AppNewser.com writes, “The free app distributes the latest reporting and market data from the media network.
“The app delivers content contextually. For example, news articles are part of a news stream that is surrounded by the latest related content on the subject such as photos, videos, background articles and even social media alerts on the subject. The app also includes financial data on companies and lets users create graphs of the company’s performance over specified periods of time. Users can also create a watchlist of topic streams, and save stories to read later. The app is optimized for both the iPhone and the iPad depending on which device you are using it on.
“Reuters has plans to roll out new features and content over the next few weeks. In addition, the company is also redesigning its website. The redesign will go live this spring.”
Read more here.
Reuters video head talks the value of digital
by Chris Roush
Andy Plesser of BeetTV.com interviewed Dan Colarusso, Reuters‘ global head of programming, about its digital video strategy.
The former video head at Bloomberg News explains how short form video works well for mobile; the value live streaming Reuters programming on Ustream; and more about the company’s monetization strategy.
CNBC’s digital ops viewers rise
by Chris Roush
CNBC.com was visited by 6 million unique users in February, flat compared to the same time period last year, according to comScore Media Metrix.
However, CNBC’s iPhone application posted 576,000 unique visitors, a 7 percent increase year-over-year, according to Omniture.
CNBC’s iPad application posted 421,000 unique visitors, a 10 percent increase year-over-year, according to Omniture.
And CNBC mobile web recorded 2.4 million unique visitors, a 16 percent increase year-over-year.
