Minnpost goes live
They took it live about an hour ago, and if the slow server response is any indication, early traffic must be brisk. Featured content: Recommended: Aaron Landry has an excellent post about his hopes and expectations for Minnpost, here.
Update: An early reaction from online/community journalism guru Dan Gillmor at the Center for Citizen Media blog: New-Media Business in Minnesota Looks Quite Traditional . Also: Steve Yelvington: MinnPost launches; does Minneapolis care? Local: Adam Platt, Six Rules for MinnPost.
29 Responses to “Minnpost goes live”
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Actually, it’s not about “paupers’ graves.” It’s a beautifully written piece (with two video selections) about Remembering with Dignity, which has been working for years on tracking down names and dates for people who lived and died at Minnesota’s state hospitals and treatment centers–people with mental retardation, mental illness, and other disabilities. There’s also a well-written piece about a woman who now lives in a group home; the video interview highlights her memories of her life at the Faribault School, her life now, and her feelings about the word “retarded.” Highly recommended reading and viewing.
Writing looks good. Looks like they’ll have good content. Too bad I can’t subscribe to it though.
They totally screwed up their RSS implementation.
Here’s an idea: How about a single RSS feed that pushes all their new stories out? That’s what everyone else that knows what they’re doing has.
Their “Main” RSS feed delivers only a snippet of their two front page stories but doesn’t deliver anything else. Their author feeds only give a post title and link. The RSS feeds are all pointless! Did they even test them?
Also, as Ed Kohler pointed out to me in a phone call last night, they have a Technorati ping option at the bottom of every post. It’s the most absurd thing and hilarious. It’s obvious if you’re a geek, but to try to explain: a “ping” is supposed to be what a site does to alert a service of new content. A system like WordPress does this automatically. It’s not something a user does, it’s something the site does. Why would you have all of your users click on a button to alert Technorati of new content?
It makes zero sense and it’s living proof that the people building the aggregation and social bookmarking portions of the site have no clue what they’re doing unfortunately. If someone on their staff even used Technorati they’d see that their implementation of a Technorati button is silly.
Like I mentioned on the post on my site, I’d really like them to succeed, but they need to have someone on staff or someone they’re partnering with that actually understands how to deliver and share content online. It shouldn’t be a couple of random local bloggers that end up pointing out to them how they’re screwing up their own site.
But I’ll stress again what I said at the beginning, I think it’s great content!
Just let people subscribe to it!
If you want to reach the “News Intense” you have to do feeds right. There are tons of problems with this right now.
I noticed they don’t include Google Reader as a suggested RSS reader, which is kind of strange considering that it’s the most popular option in the world today. That sort of thing makes me wonder how familiar the people building this are with how online news is consumed.
I don’t want to see any site suffer due to poor technology choices. They should live or die based on the quality of their content rather than their platform.
Content does look “high quality” as promised. Articles too long to get through all of them on my lunch break, so I will have to digest tonight. Good content is certainly the most important variable here.
I still am not sure what a “Post” exactly is, even now that I have seen them. And how it is different than a… um, “article?”, or “feature?”, or “main content?” from the center column. (Have they labeled the center content something unique as well?)
I still say congrats on the launch!
Isn’t it day 1? Are we really expecting perfect on day 1? Sometimes launching perfect means launching never. I suspect the RSS offerings will improve.
They’ve been testing this for months and they’re missing very basic concepts. These aren’t “bugs.”
In the newspaper business, it’s like having someone call in to subscribe to you and instead you end up delivering to them a couple random sticky notes instead of a newspaper. I think the analogy is pretty valid.
They did spend the time to create a page so people can subscribe, but the subscriptions on it are useless.
It’s as if they’re concentrating on handing out their Control-P version of the site instead of having a single person see if their subscriptions work.
Notice anything odd about the comments at the site–as in, there aren’t any? I completely sympathize with the Minnpost gang with regard to how slowly users start commenting at a new site (the Daily Mole has borne testament to that fact every day of our young life, too), but they may need to revise their commenting policy; I’ve obtained credit cards in less time than it takes to fill out the required fields in their registration.
I’m with bigboxcar. What exactly are the “Posts” and how are they different from everything else?
I gotta say, I’m a little disappointed. I would think before launch they would at least have enough content for each section.
[…] Well, today they’ve launched. More at MNspeak and The Daily Mole. What really sums it up are these two completely contradictory portions from today’s Star […]
About the lack of comments: I posted a comment on the Remembering with Dignity article, and it appeared eventually (not sure how long it took, since I only checked back just now, a couple of hours after I posted).
About RSS: Yes, it certainly is disappointing that it doesn’t work yet. Not a good sign.
My beef is that that the “posts” are dullsville. And if the intent is to go live at 11 a.m. with content, it should be a little more digestible. Maybe bullet points. Maybe summaries. Something to make it easy to read.
Make mine Mole.
Guys, my MinnPost RSS feeds work fine (in Google Reader and Firefox Live Bookmarks). I don’t think it’s because I’m an insider either.
David, here’s a link to what I’m seeing in Google Reader. Truncated, unreadable, over formatted.
Not to be all “New Media” but does MinnPost or this site accept trackbacks?
I noticed that Aaron had linked to this article but I don’t see a trackback to his comments.
Ed - thanks for the screengrab. Yeah, the story RSSes are overformatted. The posts, on the other hand, are only heds - I’d add a first graf, too.
To me, those are secondary offenses - while I love reading the whole story on RSS, I understand that many sites want you to surf to the site; MinnPost is hardly alone in that.
I though Aaron’s initial beef was only getting the stories - but I get the post RSSes too. (By the way, Aaron, you win the prize for most ubiquitous first-day commentator!)
To Jodi - the stories are more like traditional paper stories with reportage; the posts have more voice though we should add original facts to the mix.
Ken - hi! - I don’t think it’s a zero-sum game here, but I pegged you as a Mole fan from the start (as am I).
Can anyone confirm the early-on stories (from last summer, perhaps?) that the pay for the writers is $100 (Posts) to $600 (stories) - or, generously, 20 to 30 cents/word? These numbers seem very well known among writers around town, but no one from whom I’ve heard them can cite an original source.
If those pay rates are correct, then the language flying around today — “a sustainable business model for this kind of journalism” (MinnPost) and “in-depth high-quality journalism … financially viable for the long-term” (MPR) is dubious at best. What sort of long-term enterprise depends for its survival on finding journalists who can afford to write for you only because they are sustained by another source of income? What will MinnPost’s roster look like when the buyout dollars run low or the retirees decide they would prefer to earn proper freelance market rates?
So, they are “Posts.” But not “blog posts,” right? I can agree with that mostly because the presentation is not at all blog-like (The Posts Index page lists them as a TOC with AUTHOR: HEADLINE // SECTION - TIME-STAMP. Click the HEADLINE to get to the “Post.”)
Seems like they are more like “Columns,” especially when links are leading with the author’s name and the “Post” itself has a bio. Why not just call them Columns?
Maryn -
Your pay figures are essentially correct, though my understanding is that story pay can go higher for more intensely reported stories. I suspect that they’ll be at the low end of what local magazines (who I also do work for) pay.
For me - and I suspect others - I’m making a pay-for-freedom trade. Joel is committed to original reporting, and frankly, there aren’t too many places that are these days. Now, I know the sizzle factor (aka the dullness complaint) is a worry, but I’m sanguine about that. For those who haven’t waded in the web for the past decade-plus like I have, it’s a learning and in some cases unlearning experience and I’m sanguine about spine-loosening without fact-loosening.
Most of the pay complaints seem to be coming from outside the shop. You’re right that some folks, perhaps many, will fade away, but then again, if you post twice a week for a year, that’s 10K, which I suspect is more than many quality bloggers now earn. (Perhaps more than Steve this year, and certainly more than anyone writing for him!)
The marketplace simply isn’t awash in dollars right now, so for now it does depend on the kindness of those with other sources of income.
While you’re right to worry about sustainability - I do, too - we may well find good new freelancers to replace any vets who need out, and perhaps there will be more of a mix. (I should note there are folks in their 20s and 30s on the roster, though they are a distinct minority at this point.)
Also, when I wrote for Steve a decade ago as a consistent freelancer, I was paid 25 cents a word. That’s not far off from what places like CP pay today (though their freelance budget has been largely vaporized). Steve’s money wasn’t great, but I wrote for him because he loved news and original reporting and because I could do my best work. Going into MinnPost, I feel the same way about Joel.
Bigbox - Sadly, I think these days, editors do not require columns (or blog posts) to include original reporting, so “newsy post” is an attempt to distinguish that from this. It’s an unfamiliar and awkward label that might never stick, in which case it’s easily replaced down the road.
All - appreciate the discussion. This is why I say let a thousand local news sites bloom.
Brauer: Interesting counterpoint on what a “Column” is these days, and I agree with you. So you’re right that perhaps something new needs to be invented. Good luck branding “Posts” and thanks for clearing that up.
Get a life, Aaron, you are starting to sound obsessed. You’ve been hypercritical since before the launch. You obviously should go start your own MinnPost since you have it all figured out. Joel knows what he is doing and I suspect your biggest beef is that he doesn’t agree with you. Welcome to Earth, where people have different opinions, goals and capabilities to fulfill them.
Michael-
Saying that thinking my biggest beef of the matter is because Joel “doesn’t agree” with me would be just as intelligent as me saying that the only reason you’re defending Joel is because you’re the CFO at Clockwork. C’mon now.
In the end, as I’ve said, I want MinnPost to succeed. It’s just not me. Pretty much everyone I’ve asked in the Twin Cities wants high quality journalism to work online. I want it to work too. I just may have been one of the loudest voices the other day. I also emailed Joel personally yesterday.
I’ll shut up though. It’s not worth any more of my energy. Good luck guys.
-Aaron
Sorry, Aaron, my comment was pretty stupid, I admit. It just seemed like a little much.
Cheers,
Michael
(This comment got eaten by gremlins 24 hours ago; reposting to see if it makes it through.)
David,
Thanks for the response on your rates of pay (as you noted, equivalent to what you were making as a freelancer 10 years ago).
So to declare biases and context:
- I agree that the TC needs more, and more intelligent, news voices. (Gutsy would be nice too.)
- I am deeply sympathetic to the position of journalists who have worked in newsrooms for 20+ years and emerged with some form of income but without a place to put their bylines (because that was me 18 months ago, only without the guaranteed income).
- And I affirm that everyone’s entitled to perform their own cost-benefit analyses. If Strib retirees elect to make just enough money to persuade the IRS they should be allowed to deduct the trips they are taking, but not enough to, say, cover a mortgage payment, that’s their free choice.
Nevertheless, there are problems here. MinnPost is not just a new local blog that happens to be paying its bloggers more than some (given that some pro blogs pay nothing). MinnPost aggressively sought early attention — how many press releases in that pre-launch RSS feed? 30? — and it is being portrayed in some of the places that have covered it as journalism’s New Way Forward.
But it is at least curious and possibly suspect to base a new form of journalism — not to mention, in Joel Kramer’s words on launch day, “a sustainable business model” — on devaluing the product of the journalists who write for you. Any journalist who makes a living practicing this profession should question that, whatever your particular slate of journalists have decided to accept.
As you said above, you are relying on the people who write for you having other sources of income. We have a word for actions that people perform for love rather than for money: We call them hobbies. It is disturbing to see a site that launched by promising better journalism simultaneously valuing that journalism at the level of a hobby.
Maryn -
Solid response.
I guess the only thing that makes me chafe is the notion that getting paid less-than-full-time wages makes one a hobbyist.
The truth is, if I only post for MinnPost, I’ll make as much from them as I make for writing two or three features for Mpls.St.Paul or Minnesota Monthly.
I don’t think my work for either would be called a hobby - it’s part of my freelance mix, as is MinnPost.
They do have full-time journalists over there making full-time wages, so on some level, it’s a pretty conventional staffer/freelance model that exists throughout, say, the magazine world.
Now, I agree with you that the pay rate is the biggest question about sustainability, and thus your critique of MnPost resonates here. However, the story rate is not awful and the post rate, on an hourly basis, probably exceeds that of my magazine feature work.
By the way, I definitely agree about gutsy. While sometimes snark is sometimes mistaken for guts, keep on us about that.
Maryn,
I appreciate your concern about how journalists will be paid in the new world we’re facing, and I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. I’d like to explain my thinking - and lay out a few facts - about compensation for journalists at MinnPost.
1. When I talk about a sustainable model for high-quality journalism in
the Twin Cities, I am talking about raising the compensation above current levels, as soon as we can generate enough revenue to do so. We’re a nonprofit, so if we raise more money than our plan, we’ll reinvest it in the journalism.
2. MinnPost is already putting more than $10,000 a week into the
freelance journalism market, and providing six editors jobs that offer health benefits.
3. A journalist who writes one story and two posts a week for MinnPost
- which may be about a full-time week’s work at a newspaper - would earn more than $40,000 a year from MinnPost.
4. I could have hired a handful of journalists full-time instead of
dozens as part-time freelancers. You may disagree - you can find in the various comment threads disagreements with just about every decision or statement I’ve made - but here’s why I made that decision: I felt that we would make a much bigger impact by engaging dozens of really good journalists who were available, enthusiastic, and teeming with sources and knowledge. On launch day, MinnPost had 48,000 page views. I think that resulted in part from the excitement we generated with our long list of talented contributors.
5. You said that when people work for nothing, you call it a hobby. My
wife and I are putting in more than 100 hours a week between us at MinnPost, for no pay. But I don’t call it a hobby; I call it a startup. If the community agrees with us that high-quality journalism is not just a consumer good but a community asset, and if the people who care about quality journalism step up to support it, it will become a sustainable nonprofit enterprise - and a lot of talented journalists will be able to meet their mortgage payments because of it.
David, Joel,
Thanks for the thorough explanations. I appreciate your transparency (and hope you do get to raise your rates).
And Joel Kramer’s move toward global (or at least Twin Cities) domination inches forward, with his buying out of Eric Black from Minnesota Monitor. Anyone care? Not me. I prefer the scrappier MinnMonn over celeb central anyway. And does anyone have a pool on how much longer Minnpost’s native cast of thousands (of bought-out, fired and otherwise jilted TC media oldsters) will last in Kramer’s charge? What think?