ShipCrunch

Shipping media, tear down this pay wall!

The pay wall in many shipping media titles will fall, but only after a few things happen

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Much good online news is free. News pundits argue that it will stay that way. Then why is so little content from the top shipping titles available free online? Why do they bury their news like some paranoid squirrel under what is called the pay wall - the online subscription barrier?

For the time being, these titles argue that they couldn't abandon the pay wall if they wanted to. And, in many cases and among many editors, they probably do want to, in order to build their readership. Revenue from web advertising just doesn't cover the cost of keeping a modern news organisation afloat.

That isn't the whole story. Given a little trust in the market and aggressive marketing on the part of these newspapers and advertisers, the pay wall will fall. In fact, it must.

10 technologies to change shipping - #4 A profusion of propellors

From contra-rotating to pulling ones, propellor design will change shipping in coming decades

By Ryan Skinner (email)

I'm no naval architect. Like any other lay person, I rely on the observations of the experts, then assess what it means. It takes no knowledge of hydrodynamics to conclude that novel propellor arrangements will change shipping.

Why? A few major reasons:

Read how Wärtsilä designed a marketing path of its own

Designafish.com is far from run-of-the-mill marine marketing; nor were the results

By Ryan Skinner (email)  

I like to draw attention to the great, the new and the wild in thinking PR in the marine and shipping business. So I had to talk to Wärtsilä about its designafish.com campaign.

If you haven't seen it yet, go there. Now. Then come back.

I asked Mikael Simelius, Wärtsilä's VP for branding, how Designafish.com came about, what it cost them and what results they've seen.

The PR value of a race that isn't a race: Floating LNG technology

Shell, Flex LNG, Hoegh LNG and SBM Offshore in a "race" that all will likely win

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Consider a painting by Jackson Pollock (right). From seemingly random splatterings of paint, art afficionados interpret a whole world of characters, events and happenings. If a person is involved enough, he will find a story in just about anything. Engineers are no exception.

Bloomberg.com recently carried a story that would certainly get shipyards' and suppliers' mouths watering. Shell would build three mega-ships to exploit gas fields near Australia. These were the first of a new kind of technology: Floating offshore LNG production facilities.

The article described how Shell was vying with Oslo's Hoegh LNG and Flex LNG to be the first to liquefy natural gas aboard a ship. In fact, they're not the only ones. SBM Offshore, one of the world's major FPSO engineering companies, is on the same path. (Pictures of each project are at the bottom of this article.)

A race! Ah, how exciting! One immediately imagines the Americans' race against the Nazi's to develop the nuke. Or even the battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. The idea of a race stokes our imaginations. Competition is the best kind of motivation.

But, in this case, the race is pretty much a fabrication.

Making a name: E-marketing and ship crewing

Maritime Connector's founder Eric Superina talks about his experiences, hits & misses

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Courage and tenacity: Two qualities you'll need to get ahead as an Internet entrepreneur. Talk to Eric Superina of Maritime Connector, a net-based recruiter for ship crews, and you'll discover he's got bushels of both.

First of all, he left a successful career as an officer with major shipowning companies like Höegh LNG and Golar LNG, just as the manning crunch was setting in, to start Maritime Connector. Then, only one year into operation, the company had pushed its way up to a remarkable page-rank on Google. Novel tactics were getting success in a relatively novel Internet market for manning, and the company had notched up some remarkable successes.

I asked him how he's gotten Maritime Connector's name into the market, which channels it used, which tactics, which hits and which misses.

All a-twitter: A chat with Lloyd's List's Mark Warner

Lloyd's List grabbed twitter's shipping news pole position; here's their formula...

By Ryan Skinner (email)

I talked with informa's Head of Digital Mark Warner (essentially, the guy behind Lloyd's List's twitter feed, among other things) about how Lloyd's List dived into twitter, why they did it and what they're achieving.

Warner went to Lloyd's List fresh out of Plymouth with a degree in shipping. His path through one of the world's biggest B2B shipping publishers took him to the Lloyd's List web-site around 2000. From about that time, Warner and Lloyd's List began to launch new channels in to the newspaper's stories.

Shipping in social media: Your twitter starter kit

80+ news, business, commentary, financial and regulatory twitter feeds for shipping, with some analysis

By Ryan Skinner (email)

I'll be honest. This started out as another "best of" - this time, for shipping's twitterers. But, after working on it a bit, I realised that it was a foolish project.

There is no "Best of Twitter" because there's no good way to decide what is good Twitter, and what is bad Twitter. People use this thing for their own ends, and it seems as if at least 2 out of every 5 stick with it. Many people get a lot of enjoyment and value out of it. And, if you're a major American company, you can almost no longer ignore it. If you want a guide to this thing, this would not be a bad place to go: The Twitter Guide Book.

So, instead of a "best of shipping twitter", I simply list up around 80 excellent to very good to maybe some average twitter feeds according to a few large groupings:

Oslo Marine Innovation: Two new business ideas

DNV hosts Oslo Maritime Network, energy reduction workshop & newbiz incubator

By Ryan Skinner (email)

This past Friday, Oslo Maritime Network invited members and friends to a workshop hosted by DNV to discuss energy efficiency in ships, and a couple presentations from new marine business ideas.

Engineers on the cheap - Shipping in a recession: Part 2

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Shipbuilding's down cycles create a wealth of cheap engineering resources, R&D opportunities

You should listen closely to this; it may make your future. A couple of week's ago, I sat listening to Per Brinchman of Wilhelmsen Maritime Consulting (he's Wilhelmsen's chief newbuilding and shipyard resource) describe the challenges facing zero emissions shipping. Wilhelmsen's zero emissions Orcelle concept seemed stalled; little had happened. Alas, with the recession, things would surely go from bad to worse.

That's when Brinchman offered a few rays of hope.

Deep waters remain silent: Is the IMO up to the task?

When "on top of the situation" means less than "being seen to be on top of the situation"

By Ryan Skinner (email)

 

Too much time signing meeting minutes, not enough talking to the press?

Sometimes it seems like every jurisdiction that could be, should be or is run by the UN ends up a quagmire, whether it be space, the poles, Afghanistan or the open seas. Over the IMO's 50 years, it has probably never seen as many challenges as today. Piracy, security, climate change, ballast water and maritime technologies are a few of the many areas screaming for increased coordination and government.