tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post8701931292844939301..comments2024-02-01T13:43:30.395+04:00Comments on Dubai Media Observer: Are you using more PR material than ever before?mediamonsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13462585789471094939noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-59389761676411057552009-10-30T23:54:01.152+04:002009-10-30T23:54:01.152+04:00PR companies? As in Pathetic and Rubbish?!PR companies? As in Pathetic and Rubbish?!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-71039681568179737612009-09-14T05:51:08.270+04:002009-09-14T05:51:08.270+04:00PR person: "Did you get the press release I h...PR person: "Did you get the press release I have sent you?"<br />journalist: " No, when have you sent it?"<br />PR person:"I am sending it now."<br />journalist slams the phone. the minute a PR person starts to really know his job, he becomes too good for it and get either promoted to a senior position he/she is under-qualifies for it or the insightful statements that comes from her/him.Then we get back to a newbie who learns by driving us nuts daily.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-25602033255507604662009-07-29T07:09:24.516+04:002009-07-29T07:09:24.516+04:00Why does a large black screen appear across the st...Why does a large black screen appear across the story everytime I try to follow a link from the home page of the National? Surely they don't expect you to subscribe to the online edition?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-52606280256733615262009-07-26T17:44:53.708+04:002009-07-26T17:44:53.708+04:00Well, anon @ 9:29, I guess we have very different ...Well, anon @ 9:29, I guess we have very different views of what's been happening here...Magnus Nystedthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01222595760816223447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-1828125914939763502009-07-26T14:38:15.980+04:002009-07-26T14:38:15.980+04:00ITP -
there i said it you bunch of moaning cunts...ITP -<br /><br /><br />there i said it you bunch of moaning cunts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-52805590594603648792009-07-26T10:06:03.744+04:002009-07-26T10:06:03.744+04:00New thread - Gulf News to pay £1m in libel damages...New thread - Gulf News to pay £1m in libel damages...<br /><br />http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/construction_and_property/article6727555.eceAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-80117868959470655382009-07-26T09:29:49.537+04:002009-07-26T09:29:49.537+04:00Like I said earlier. You work with a mag. I work w...Like I said earlier. You work with a mag. I work with a daily. <br /><br />you seem to know what you dont want as a reader, why the dailies must not use press releases and sing about integrity.<br /><br />Yet even after clearly mentioning what has to be changed in Shuffle in the first and second post, you ignore the obvious and ask me to come to office and redo your mag.<br /><br />So what do they pay you for EmiratesMac? rofl...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-86860709922403556872009-07-25T15:43:29.444+04:002009-07-25T15:43:29.444+04:00It's pretty simple "anonymous", I...It's pretty simple "anonymous", I'm the only one not being anonymous here so far :-) The link you refer to I assume is a trackback from our site so nothing special there.<br /><br />Your comments might be valid but that's hard to judge since we don't know who you are. And whether you have 20 years of experience or not doesn't really matter if you don't reveal who you are.<br /><br />Our offer stands. Come to our office and help us out since you seem to think we need it badly :-)Magnus Nystedthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01222595760816223447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-14194234206961761182009-07-25T11:51:50.571+04:002009-07-25T11:51:50.571+04:00So either EmiratesMac is running DMO or has a frie...So either EmiratesMac is running DMO or has a friend there. hence the profile pixs and the only one to have a link within a thread that links back to his mag site. <br /><br />see below - 'someone does not like Shuffle...' rofl<br /><br />However, EmiratesMac, you forgot one thing to your site. to add my 'annonymous' constructive comments posted later on what has to be improved in Shuffle. they are valid even if I chose to remain annonymous.<br /><br />as for my experience - around 20 years in the industry. Maybe, I should put in a few more to qualify in your eyes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-34726898583336153622009-07-23T21:26:59.760+04:002009-07-23T21:26:59.760+04:00wtf???
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...wtf???<br /><br />http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6716543.eceAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-84485379035215118762009-07-23T20:53:00.214+04:002009-07-23T20:53:00.214+04:00Please explain "better" readership. If t...Please explain "better" readership. If this is in consumer terms I am assuming you are talking about people who spend money... Is there a demographic breakdown available for this?<br /><br />Do Arabic papers charge 6 times of what Gulf News charges? Would be nice to know.<br /><br />Also one the previous post populated by National staff someone is claming that even small groceries stock the paper. So where is this better readership located?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-72462987246784859712009-07-23T15:50:07.293+04:002009-07-23T15:50:07.293+04:00@anonymous 7:22
You make a lot of good points re ...@anonymous 7:22<br /><br />You make a lot of good points re The National's inflated subscription figures, and i suspect theyre including free copies in the overall circulation. As does Arabian Business and pretty much all the tinpot mags and newspapers in the region.<br /><br />However, you're a bit lost when you say that Gulf News should make 6 times more on ads than The National, simply because they have six times more readers. <br /><br />Ad revenue depends on the readership, and while im inclined to believe The National undoubtedly gets indirect state support from government-linked entities that are mandated to advertise at inflated rates, the readership of The National is far "better" than that of Gulf News.<br /><br />For example, the Financial Times and the Economist charge far more than the Sun and The National Enquirer, simply because their readers are on average far more affluent. <br /><br />I would have thought this was pretty obvious.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-60822281856308934012009-07-23T12:54:59.957+04:002009-07-23T12:54:59.957+04:0007:22 - Someone knows their shit. Of course you ar...07:22 - Someone knows their shit. Of course you are relying on Alexa for your ranking, which is a bit suspect to say the least.<br /><br />You are also assuming that the most important thing for an advertiser is volume. For marketers I think you will find it is more about the quality of audience. (Or should be.)<br /><br />Frankly, paying for 1,000,000 banners hitting a demographic that has no resonance with a brand, is a big waste of money.<br /><br />I am not saying the National has a better audience than Gulf News. But I think it may be quite different, and for a certain advertiser, at least 6 x more valuable.<br /><br />That said I think you make some brilliant points, exceptionally well - which is something for this blog. The power of inertia works very much to Gulf News' advantage.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-30280663937806659982009-07-23T10:01:53.670+04:002009-07-23T10:01:53.670+04:00EmiratesMac
to start with, separate English from ...EmiratesMac <br />to start with, separate English from Arabic. <br />two, keep products separate at the end of the mag or in a section.<br />just walk to any mag rack in any store and see for yourself.<br />I dont think you have been long in journalism or you would not ask the obvious..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-44681805110992005912009-07-22T18:13:57.119+04:002009-07-22T18:13:57.119+04:00"Anonymous" @ 12:57, thank you for your ..."Anonymous" @ 12:57, thank you for your constructive criticism. You're more than welcome to come our office and help us out with design, editorial, and whatever else you feel like. It seems like you know exactly what Shufflegazine should be so we look forward to your input.Magnus Nystedthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01222595760816223447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-85412883435004660692009-07-22T12:57:09.185+04:002009-07-22T12:57:09.185+04:00EmiratesMac. you are with a mag so you have plenty...EmiratesMac. you are with a mag so you have plenty of time to write. <br /><br />newspapers use releases because we cant be everywhere. and some companies only talk thru the release because of the strong pr firms who are gods now that again, companies dont advertise.<br />with the recession, most do not want to talk to press.<br /><br />besides shuffle looks like one big product plug. the layout looks like a Rorshach ink blot test with two languages on every page. <br /><br />apart from that, chill guys. I want to see the number of exclusives in August and Ramadan. pls dont use press releases then.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-23276032338246969782009-07-22T07:22:09.775+04:002009-07-22T07:22:09.775+04:00The National's subscription "techniques,&...The National's subscription "techniques," explained:<br />You can extrapolate this information from the web metrics data. If you look at the web users, between 10-20k unique, you can see that ADMC would need 4-8 times as many people subscribing to the printed paper as look at the website (not total sold, but subscribers). You can pull these data from a number of web traffic analytics companies. That is unheard of anywhere. Nobody in the world has eight times as many daily subscribers as people checking the (free) website. Even in a country with terrible web speeds, there is no way the Nat is pulling in 8x as many subscribers as unique pageviews.<br />-<br />Some case studies:<br />guardian.co.uk: 25 million (October 2008)<br />The Guardian: 335k<br />.<br />nytimes.com: 18 million (December 2008)<br />NY Times: 1 million<br />.<br />You can check this link to see what I mean:<br /><a href="http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/thenational.ae+gulfnews.com" rel="nofollow"> Link to an analysis comparing thenational.ae and gulfnews.com </a><br />.<br />When viewed as a percentage of bounce hits the National has a staggering number compared to the gulfnews.com or any website for that matter. Bounce hits are one of the best metrics to determine advert revenue rate of return. A bounce hit registers when a person lands on one page and then leaves without viewing anything else. Running a 60% bounce rate is mad. Above 80% won't even register because of what is called statistical "fat-tailing." Nearly every one of thenational.ae hits is leaving after viewing just one or maybe even NO pages. Because of how hits are computed, a hit could be registered even if the browser doesn't have anything on the screen. This is especially true if you run metric data through Google Analytics (which the National does. You can see the applet on the source code of the page). The Javascript that runs Google Analytics will log a hit even if the server that is sending the data can't manage to send the page fast enough to prevent a timeout.<br />.<br />If somebody were really interested in this they could pull the data from Nielsen to see what Nielsen quotes as an ask price for a banner ad and compare it to what the National actually charges. I'll bet you a dirham that the two don't match up at all. Only in this country could thenational.ae charge anything near what the gulfnews.com does. <br />.<br />Forget the sycophantic, maudlin nonsense about which paper has more heart or whose reporters work harder. The real question is: since the gulfnews.com ranks in the top 5000 most viewed websites and thenational.ae barely cracks the top 40,000, is the Nat charging 1/6 the price for adverts? And, what cunt would ever pay parity to post an advert in thenational.ae?<br />.<br />Even if The National didn't recycle last year's news and was, instead, churning out mountains of fresh original copy every single day that was groundbreaking and investigative and so on... even then, what would it matter if there are no eyes on that copy. Newspapers are a business (most are) and at the rates the National is running—even using their own quoted figures of 80k daily and the best case web data—there is no possible way they are even covering their fixed costs. It's a vanity rag. But, then again, if bad press is costing your Sovereign Wealth Fund Dhs800 billion a year because your bond issues are getting less than investment grade, then Dhs10 billion on a really well crafted, daily press release trumpeting your business acumen is money well spent. You can't buy that kind of... oh right, you can buy it—even if nobody else does.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-55018015389850281792009-07-21T23:03:57.404+04:002009-07-21T23:03:57.404+04:00Having seen KT and the other two, I'd say KT h...Having seen KT and the other two, I'd say KT has bad subs but good stories. It's not even to the reporters' credit, it seems to have information systems which let news filter in from emirates other than Dubai or Abu Dhabi. It also has journalists who know their beat from the sheer effort of having worked it for a decade. <br />In a normal place that would count for a lot. In a media scene or at least the blog domiated by those who couldn't name three areas in Deira or all the emirates its not likely to count for anything. After all, The National's news editor's path breaking story, which may have landed him this job, was on the calory content of burgers (with a close shot of the burger).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-64330769262783184592009-07-21T00:53:30.639+04:002009-07-21T00:53:30.639+04:00shouldn't this guy be put in jail??
http://w...shouldn't this guy be put in jail?? <br /><br />http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6716543.eceAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-80457272974783061442009-07-20T19:43:25.680+04:002009-07-20T19:43:25.680+04:00aw bless... (wipes tears from eyes)
I was going t...aw bless... (wipes tears from eyes)<br /><br />I was going to say something sarcastic and acerbic about KT - perhaps pointing out that a mere desire to occasionally get an original news story right shouldnt be a cause for celebration - but that last post just sapped me of desire. Who would want to kick a brave underdog like KT after all?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-13476013466328851692009-07-20T15:50:25.872+04:002009-07-20T15:50:25.872+04:00could someone pls explain the subscription figures...could someone pls explain the subscription figures for the leading newspapers. how do all these newspapers get delivered? having visited abu dhabi i know there are no addresses, only po box numbers. who delivers all these papers and how? could someone explain. thanks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-79959709366982088882009-07-20T11:56:39.648+04:002009-07-20T11:56:39.648+04:00You can say whatever you want about the KT.
Sure...You can say whatever you want about the KT. <br /><br />Sure the National is a better design, sure GN has an inexplicably loyal readership.<br /><br />But where's the romance of being on the winning team all the time? <br /><br />While most of the time we fuck it up, those precious few occasions we get it right, and do better than those who have dozens more reporters than us, are priceless. <br /><br />I don't expect any of you to understand what it means to succeed against the odds. Or to have a business desk staffed by three reporters. <br /><br />I'm not saying that the KT is perfect, or a serious challenger for being the best in the market. But for being where it is, through the efforts of a handful of hardworking hacks, the KT is the real hero.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-56710221483270176022009-07-20T08:00:21.393+04:002009-07-20T08:00:21.393+04:00This is a bit like arguing Qatar is the richest co...This is a bit like arguing Qatar is the richest country in the world.<br /><br><br><br />You could argue it was with its very high GDP per capita. However the external value or influence of that is very low.<br><br><br />Alternatively, you could say the US is the richest country in the world.. where GDP per capita is lower, but total GDP much higher.<br /><br><br>It may well be true that per capita the KT breaks more stories, but frankly for your average punter that is pretty meaningless. <br /><br><br>Even if, as the rumours suggest, National staff spend most of their time doing nothing, with 20,000 of them, well, what was that story about monkeys producing Shakespeare?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-51465987856574492932009-07-19T22:29:07.707+04:002009-07-19T22:29:07.707+04:00Yes, Khaleej Times is carp, but KT guys get around...Yes, Khaleej Times is carp, but KT guys get around dirhams 7,000 to produce crap while National guys get dirhams 27,000 but they still produce crap, so you decide who is a bigger drain on the company.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3096398547821208840.post-7770206446700875482009-07-19T21:11:38.163+04:002009-07-19T21:11:38.163+04:00So if it's common practice in media to publish...So if it's common practice in media to publish press releases as news. presumably either to save time (and money) or just because of laziness, then how does someone who wants to do the right thing compete? Do the readers care or are they happy enough with the press release stuff?Magnus Nystedthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01222595760816223447noreply@blogger.com