I got this email just now, it’s so ugly I thought I’d follow the link to see how bad the survey was. I took the extra time to take pictures and write comments.

The landing page as not too bad, except I couldn’t care less about adding to my nano collection, and suspect many in the target market feel the same way.

The first questions were broad. So I own lots of devices – but which ones do I view news on? The categories of apps are so broad. Perhaps it wold be better to focus on media apps, and even ask which ones I have and which ones I use. (NYTimes.com is the only one I use, and even then not very often)

The questions stayed bad – it’s actually really hard to design a questionnaire, and I suspect that the answers from this one will not be that useful. The feature list forgets that the most interesting thing is content. The payment question could lead to someone thinking that $10 per month is ok, when we all expect to pay $1 for the app and that’s it. And even the publications question – the answer it I’d probably look at all of them if they were in one app, but more important is the link to their online content.

I like the open question about what a mobile app would look like, though answers could be quite fun.

Finally the survey makes the basic mistake of enforcing the question asking for my email address and phone number. This is a great way to reduce response rates and increase bias, as evidenced by my not hitting the respond button.

So to summarise:

- We want to help, and while some people are motivated by winning prizes, most are not. So don’t make us give you our email address and phone – it feels like spam and we probably won’t.

- Focus the survey on the topic – which is a iPhone/Android/iPad app for your magazines

- Write the report that you want to result from the survey before you write the survey. This means that the answers you get will be the answers you need to fill the holes in your report.

A little of the look lives on, with the RugbyHeaven logo moved across to the new site integrated into Stuff. The standalone site extended the look of the logo, and used a lot of black – one method of demonstrating that it was principally there to support and report on NZ rugby.

Now we can see a bit of the way the old site used to look by looking at the new SuperXV.com site – which will be next year’s version of Super14.com. They have used a lot of the “black with holes” look, and the logo itself is very similar. I’m a bit surprised though at the use of black – a colour associated with the All Blacks, and not one that Australians or South African will really resonate with.

It’s completely fair though for SuperXV.com to copy the old Rugbyheaven.co.nz look. Firstly because the old site no longer exists, and secondly because Rugbyheaven.co.nz leaned heavily on rugbyheaven.com.au for design influence. That site has also lost its independence and is merely part of the smh.com.au empire.

The unanswered question for Fairfax and other publishers is whether it is better to have one enormous site with many sections, or standalone sites that capture and retain a certain market? The answer is a function not only of what audiences want, and you can measure that through traffic, but also on what is easier to sell for the advertising sales team. To me the integrated site, while not as fun, is the way to go for now. Advertising sales can still offer up section sponsorships to customers, while readers are less confused by the multiple sites, and traffic will be higher. On the other hand the international rugby fan traffic will be lower, but that’s harder to earn money from anyway. I would like to see a more distinctive look for rugby section though.

However Trade and Exchange were the Trade Me of their day. They seized an opportunity to grab and extend the classifieds market away from newspapers, and in doing so created a large business and a headache for the papers.

Then Trade Me then seized the opportunity to grab and extend T&E’s business, and finally Fairfax completed the circle when they purchased Trade Me to get their old line of business back.

On the way through T&E and Trade Me the classified’s business grew tremendously in size and usefulness, to become the e-commerce engine of New Zealand.

There are a number of lessons to be learned:

1. Don’t be afraid of destroying your own business by launching a new one. If you don’t then someone else will.
2. If you accept that you are not capable of destroying your own business, then pull out your check book when it looks like someone else will. Once you have purchased them then leave them alone and let them grow independently of your own systems and processes.
3. Know when to lose – exit a market when you stop making money, and not a moment before of after.\

(disclosure – I’ve consulted Trade Me, Fairfax and WAN’s Quokka)

I created some charts to read the Magazine numbers better – so here they are. They show the differences between 2007/8 and 2008/9 readership numbers.

Click on the images for larger versions. Check out the Newspaper readership charts post as well.

It’s a sea of red.

I’ve tried m.stuff.co.nz, and it did work – albeit unusably slowly.

What’s going on? Are others overseas having the same issue?

<update: via @spudooli and Toni and @livlarge: Stuff have run out of international bandwidth.

RT @NZStuff Heavy demand on Stuff has maxed out our international bandwidth and some users having trouble getting in. Increasing limits asap

Words fail me>

As always Fairfacts wrote good troll fodder – the best line of which was:

Considering how Fox News is prospering while the MSNBC and the New York Times for example, seem to be paying a particularly high price for their liberal bias, I hope that our own MSM in New Zealand can get the message.

That’s bound to get a rise from many – especially as the very next line was:

..the purpose of the MSM, as paid professionals is to offer fair and balanced news and analysis.

Instead of reading the entertaining yet jingoistic Fairfacts – go instead to the source – Pew’s Research Center for People and the Press – where you will find the original report. It’s fascinating stuff, but to be fair you could interpret the results in a number of ways.

For example:

In 2005, the proportion of Republicans saying news stories are often inaccurate reached a high of 68%: just 47% of Democrats agreed.

Does this mean that the reports from the news organisations actually were inaccurate? (which makes most Republicans right and half of the Democrats right) Or does it mean the reports were accurate and but that the Republicans were a bit less inclined to believe the reports than the Democrats?

Undoubtedly it means both. During the last 10 years we saw from the traditional media plenty of examples of poor journalism (e.g. not not challenging the premise behind Iraq war), an overwhelming amount of biased reporting (Fox) and plenty of one eyed rhetoric (Monica). It’s fair to say that the left and the right were never really communicating, and really still do not to this day. Go follow the health care debate if you want to see what pit of hell political discourse has descended to in the USA.

Regardless of political affiliation, all media, US and otherwise, should be looking at this table with some concern.

Not only do over 60% of people see media news as influenced, biased, inaccurate and one eyed, but a mere 27% see them as professional.

If the big news concerns are not seen as independent and professional, then the value of their authority – their brand if you will – erodes steadily. That brand is out trust in them, and if we do not trust those that bring us the news then why should we bother to watch, listen or read?

We need news organisations that we can trust to find and edit the news – reporting in a truly balanced way. We are lucky in New Zealand with our main media companies – across TV, newspapers and radio we have more than one source of news we can trust. May it continue for a long time.

The last place I would have thought to see it was on Fairfax owned Stuff. I found the link to the video from the homepage – just beneath the banner.

The video itself has a one line article attached – leading me to infer that this is just one of many pulled over from TVNZ:

I understand that Bridget has made a few people uncomfortable over the years, and I guess TVNZ relished the chance to do a bit of an ambush on her. Close Up asked her bluntly about plastic surgery (yes botox), whether she had slept with a married politician (no married man ever) and whether she was fired or chose to leave (she called the meeting). To her credit she answered all the questions, though it was clearly a difficult interview for her, and the editing room did her no favours at all.

I think it was a bit over the top by TVNZ, but I guess I can understand that they wanted ratings. However the interview was amateurish – confronting Bridget with unsubstantiated gossip instead of substantiated facts, and thatapproach backfired for me as it looked like TVNZ was trying to smear Bridget, and she came across as very human and open.

It wasn’t journalism though – it was a fishing expedition, and they came home with an empty bucket. For Bridget, well I guess that’s part of the game of being a gossip columnist – you get to take some licks as well as give them. Shame on you TVNZ though – you could have done a lot better.

But I feel strongly that Fairfax, through Stuff, overstepped the mark tonight by placing this online, and by linking to it from the front page.

Bridget is not only a former Fairfax writer, but Stuff itself publishes Bridget’s work in her About Town blog. You can still read the blog – with the last post  on 6 May – yet sadly there was no goodbye from Bridget.

I’m guessing (hoping) that the night editors at Stuff just grabbed the TVNZ videos and placed them on the site.The ‘article’ is just the video description. I’m hoping they didn’t realise that Bridget was in their shoes a week earlier.

The video even ends with a victory salutation to the new Queen of gossip – who works for rival APN’s NZHerald.

I have absolutely no idea about the circumstances surrounding Bridget’s departure and I’m not too clear on how you balance the news-worthiness of an item versus loyalty to your own contributors. I believe that publishing this was unintentional, but this is unacceptable to Bridget, and must raise questions amongst other Fairfax staff and contributors.

Whatever the cause, the effect of seeing this on Stuff must be pretty rough on Bridget, who could feel that Fairfax is disowning her with prejudice. That’s not a nice way to end a seven year relationship.

I feel for her. I did meet Bridget once or twice during my tenure at Fairfax and she was delightful. I wish her luck in her new venture – writing a book on bad sex.

Oh – and I think it would be wise for those with sharp knives to remember that being included in a gossip column is a minor inconvenience compared to a starring role in a book on bad sex.

The problem is that eBay traditionally purchases auction sites, then brings over the content to their own site and use their own model. They struggle to see the world any other way.

Trade Me outperforms eBay, and so this approach would destroy value. Moving the site over to eBay’s version would sharply reduce listings, lower income and reduce profits  for Trade Me. Listings would drop as members are confronted with eBay’s Byzantine systems, income would drop as sales drop due to the same and gross profit would get eaten as the spend on advertising goes way up.

It gets worse. eBay doesn’t understand the motors and property markets, whereas Trade Me has succeeded, while Jobs is something that they are also nowhere near. Don’t even start me on selling advertising.

So Trade Me was, and is, more valuable to a financial or media purchaser than to eBay.

Fairfax, a media purchaser, kept Trade Me at arms length since purchase – allowing the business to continue to develop along some pretty impressive curves.

The results are obvious – today Trade Me has 1.19m listings in NZ and eBay Australia has just 1.16m items located in Australia. That’s right – there are more items for sale in NZ than Australia, and that’s a country with well over five times NZ’s population.

But wait. If eBay are smart then they would see Trade Me as an opportunity to improve their own businesses around the world. 

While the list of things that I would do if in charge of eBay has been covered before, I have to confess that buying Trade Me was not on the list – and it absolutely should be, and I’d pay a lot for it.

But after the purchase what should eBay do?

They should leave Trade Me alone, and not tell them how to do anything. Instead, I’d help the rest of the eBay organisation learn as much as they can from Trade Me’s success. 

I’d send people from eBay’s senior development team to Trade Me – to work under the direction of Trade Me staff – and to do really entry level stuff. They can learn, and spread the word to the rest of eBay.

I’d send Trade Me senior staff over to the US, to spread their message of simplicity and usability.

Then time for some fun – I’d replace eBay’s Australian site with Trade Me’s platform. This is a massive migration, but the listing numbers alone say that something is seriously sick with eBay Australia. Let’s see how that goes, and it everything goes well, then start hitting other smaller markets.

And so on.

But is eBay smart enough to pay enough for Trade Me?  I think not.

I have to admit this makes sense. Newspapers create an enormous amount of paper waste for the household, and as a committed news junkie I really only enjoy reading the print versions on Saturdays and Sundays. Also, as people switch their media online they have less time for the daily newspaper, and so this gives the newspaper a chance to be there only when it is relevant. Clever.

It’s going to be interesting times for the printing presses though as that lost production is lost economies of scale. That means we may see massive printing consolidation if this becomes a trend.

This is really important as Gannett has been on the forefront of the online news world, and they own about 85 newspapers. If this works then expect the rest to roll over in time.

Gannett itself is losing 2000 (10%) jobs across their organisation, but smartly these are not expected to come from the newsroom. Beleagured Fairfax, APN and WAN will be watching closely. They could start by following the excellent Gannett Blog, here’s the post that seems to have scooped everyone.

It’s pretty similar to one I look at to get West Australian News

Both of those screenshots are the entire height of my little mac portable. You really see very little content, with the focus directed to the main stories of the day which rotate.

TheWest, with the bigger pictures, checks in at 1.6mb, and then keeps grabbing pictures forever. TVNZ is at 1.4mb a bit smaller on the upload, but that is still a lot for the 40% of so on dialups. (Not that Stuff and NZHerald are much better).

I admit I was pretty sceptical of TheWest’s new site last year, but I am informed that their traffic numbers are actually doing really well since, and that is in the face of some new Fairfax competition in WAToday and News corps PerthNow.

The TVNZ and WAToday sites are great if you just want to get the top news – the rotating banners drive traffic to the vital few. They are harder to get deeper news from as they seem a bit tabloidish. That of course is their market.

Geekzone blogger Juha nails the vital difference between TVNZ and the APN/Fairfax sites:

“And please TVNZ… commission more local stories from local journos instead of filling the site with the usual Reuters rootarola wirecopy that everyone else carries. And, I mean good solid news and analysis, and not the usual opinion swamp that passes for journalism these days.”

Rupert Murdoch gets this – he is ramping up content creation at the Wall Street Journal. Fairfax, APN and TVNZ should all remember that while presentation is important, it’s the timely accurate pertinant content – in short news – that matters the most.

Disclosure: I’ve consulted to WA Newspapers recently (unlreated to theWest website) and Fairfax a while back