Posts FromNovember, 2009

13
Nov 09

Outside.in is Hiring a VP Product Development

Posted by mark in General — View Comments

We are looking for a dynamic individual to lead our Product Development efforts.  He or she will help make sure our collective vision for a new platform for local media is executed flawlessly.

Specific responsibilities include working with the team to build and refine our overall product roadmap and scope the features, functionality, competitive positioning and performance of all of our products.

The ideal candidate should be a proven leader and have prior success at a revenue-focused online media company.  He/she should have experience running a product organization that includes new product development, project management, research, graphic and UI design. Experience with local media and the geo-web is a definite plus.

This is a hands-on job that requires deep knowledge and demonstrable industry-leading experience with all facets of online publishing, media and software, including:

  • All types of online advertising, including national and local search and display
  • Different types of ad pricing (i.e. CPM, CPC, CPA) and targeting (i.e. geo, behavioral, contextual, retargeting, etc..)
  • Performance and conversion optimization
  • Ad servers (i.e. DFP, OpenX, etc..)
  • Ad networks and exchanges
  • XML feed aggregation
  • Content aggregation and syndication
  • Consumer media destination businesses
  • Semantic algorithms and NLP
  • Search engine optimization
  • Analytics and reporting
  • UX and usability
  • Development methodologies and Software Project Management

Additional Requirements

  • College degree (MBA preferred) or equivalent experience
  • Minimum 10 years online media experience
  • Strong management skills
  • A strong network of fellow industry leaders
  • Superior interpersonal and communication skills
  • Insatiable desire for “what’s next” in media and on the web

Outside.in is a fast-paced, high-growth company and values innovation, speed, quality and results.  We look for people who share those values.

Please send a link to your updated LinkedIn profile to careers@outside.in.

13
Nov 09

More on the #NewBiz Conference at CUNY

Posted by camilla in Events / Industry Notes & Commentary / Outside.in for Publishers — View Comments

picture-12My colleague Jared provided a great commentary on this blog after the recent New Business Models for News Conference and HyperCamp at CUNY. Thought I’d add a few more thoughts from the revenue angle.

As Sean Blanda points out in his recap, and repeatedly expressed by the confab attendees, a major unmet need in the hyperlocal space is around selling. In other words, what I heard loud and clear is: “I need revenue!” As this conference re-affirmed, there are plenty of journalists, bloggers, publishers (large and small) who are producing and featuring hyperlocal content, the challenge is how does one monetize this content.

Not surprising… after all, who doesn’t want to make some money? But here is why this is interesting:

  • No real mention of the usual self-service online sales route, such as Google or other ad networks). You can read into what is NOT being spoken aloud here… Google AdSense is not enough. Generating pennies off of clicks may work for the behemoth that is Google, but not for the independent local news site. Folks are well aware of how big the local ad market is ($100B+) and appear hungry to go after some of this big pie.
  • I sensed a DIY attitude when it came to ad sales. Individual publishers want to know how to sell. Journalists may not “do spreadsheets” but maybe some will do sales? I’m usually a fan of the DIY mentality and entrepreneurial spirit, but to make local ad sales work, DIY will not cut it. Local networks need to form to provide scale and efficiency. Rather than you sell what’s yours and I sell what’s mine, how about the best person sell on behalf of everyone in the market?
  • Not every hyperlocal site or news org should have to sell. The staff of the new news organization should focus on what they are good at, and in most cases, that will not be sales. The ability to sell is not something you teach and voila: You’re now making money. I wish it were that simple. Not only does it require recruiting the right people and training them properly, but you also need to equip them with the right tools and products to sell with, and most importantly, incentivize and motivate them to sell something that is not theirs. But local sales teams that have the skills and relationships already exist. The key is how to connect them with the relevant inventory that best services the advertisers… Sounds very similar to the challenge of connecting the big media folks to the local network of bloggers.

So, what does all this portend? Well, the future is still being shaped (by some of the folks there at the conference and other thought leaders and innovators), but a few things are clear on the ad sales front: Training will not be the answer and generating meaningful local dollars will require more cooperation and collaboration amongst the relevant parties. Yes, more group hugs are in order, as Jeff Jarvis insisted. And local networks being sold by the right sales teams will be the key in this new ecosystem.

12
Nov 09

At #NewBiz, Bloggers and Mainstream Media Search for a Relationship

Posted by Jared in Outside.in for Publishers — View Comments

By the end of yesterday’s New Business Models for News Conference at CUNY’s J-School, one thing was overwhelmingly clear: Bloggers want to get their content on major media sites and major media sites want this content.  Yet, according to these two groups, there remains a big problem: How to do it?  Upon hearing this, we at Outside.in felt great because Outside.in for Publishers delivers a solution to this problem.  Let me elaborate.

The so-called Reverse Panel, a rather clever idea on the part of Jeff Jarvis put this issue in relief.  Jeff put 6 forward-thinking “Big Players” (Jim Willse of the Star-Ledger, Jim Schachter of the NY Times, Jennifer Carroll of Gannett, Goli Sheikholeslami of the Washington Post, Jim Brady of Politico, and John Paton of ImpreMedia) at the table and asked the room full of bloggers, small publishers, and tech start-ups to tell the Big Players what we would like them to do.  What do we need from them?  What could they do to make our jobs easier?

The bloggers said, “We want you to give us visibility and traffic.  When we scoop a story that you like, we want you to put it on your site and give us the credit.”  The publishers agreed, saying they want the content, and in fact, they went so far as to claim, more than once, that without taking advantage of the great journalism happening on blogs, their businesses will fail.  Everyone agreed on this point.  The stumbling block was around the How.  How do the publishers surface the blogger content on their site in a fair, respectful, and mutually beneficial way?  What does that relationship look like?

That’s exactly what we’re working on. With Outside.in for Publishers, we’ve built a platform that enables publishers to display headlines, links, and summaries of blogger content on their sites.  It generates hyperlocal ad inventory for publishers and gives traffic and visibility to bloggers. Essentially, we’re making this relationship easy.  OIP is automated yet full of opportunities for customization.  Publishers can choose the sources from which they get content.  If they’re really picky, they can even select the stories that come from those trusted sources.  The editor becomes a curator of the blogosphere; the tools are in their hands.

Many publishers have already begun their work with Outside.in for Publishers, yet of the panel members, only the New Jersey division of Gannett (represented by Jennifer Carroll) has taken advantage of the service.  So, to you others I pose an honest question: if you know you need to leverage the blogosphere, what’s holding you back from using Outside.in for Publishers?  Every day we’re improving our platform.  I encourage you tell us exactly what you need so that we can help you hurdle the stumbling block of the How.

4
Nov 09

Come Be The Center of The Blogosphere!

Posted by Jared in General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

Do you love talking to bloggers? In fact, are some of your friends bloggers and do you correspond with them on Twitter all day? Do you find yourself thinking hard about bloggers’ place in journalism and society and what their successful business models might look like? Do you write about these ideas?  Do you think you are or would you like to become the center of The Blogosphere? And do you want to get paid for it?

If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions or if just hearing them for the first time piques your interest, then read on.  Outside.in is hiring a Community Manager, and you may be perfect for the job.

The Outside.in Community Manager is the company’s dedicated liaison to local bloggers across the country and is primarily responsible for the development of a loyal, active and engaged community.

The Community Manger will be passionate about local bloggers, and dedicated to their success and to Outside.in’s mission to help grow their business.  Outstanding written and verbal skills are a must, as is the ability to create a plan, act quickly, track results and quickly adapt.

The position reports to the Director of Partner Relations.

Responsibilities include:

  • Maintain Outside.in’s blog and other public channels; ensuring that they become effective two-way tools for communication
  • Author blog posts, articles, tweets, podcasts or other ways to communicate the benefits of Outside.in and use of Outside.in to our customers.
  • Create a vibrant community of customers through education, outreach, events and other customer engagement strategies.
  • Foster a sense of community around our brand at the product and corporate level
  • Grow GeoToolkit’s user base, including but not limited to creating and executing plans to increase the number of users
  • Research and provide input, as a representative of the blogging community, in the development of Outside.in for Bloggers products
  • Monitor key online conversations and events to make sure Outside.in is participating effectively & is being represented.
  • Respond to user comments, questions, and requests regarding both GeoToolkit and Outside.in’s core site
  • Learn our products inside and out and be able to drive users’ questions and issues to resolution

Potential candidates could have backgrounds in marketing, community management, audience engagement, blogging, or journalism.  The ideal candidate will already be immersed in social media and online communities and have a robust online profile for our review.  Having created a Twitter account with thousands of followers is a plus!

Please send us a link to your online presence as your application to jobs@outside.in.

4
Nov 09

Maintenance Complete (11/4/09, midnight)

Posted by Jared in General — View Comments

Thanks for your patience last night while we made some important upgrades.  The site has been up and running, rather snappily, since late last night.

You may resume enjoying the news around you.

3
Nov 09

Outside.in is down for maintenance

Posted by lauren in General — View Comments

The scheduled maintenance we tweeted about tonight is still under way.

Please be patient while we improve your neighborhood news. We’ll be able to tell you what’s going on about your door again soon.

Check this post our our Twitter account for updates.

update: And we’re back, stronger and faster than ever!

Blog WebMastered by All in One Webmaster.