BusinessInsider reporting:
We tend to talk about social networks in terms of size, because audience
reach is one of social media’s biggest advantages. That’s why Facebook
gets so much attention. With 1.2 billion monthly active users, it’s a
beast.
But as audiences adopt newer social networks, and people’s social
activity becomes increasingly fragmented, other measures of social
network activity become more important, especially for businesses trying
to determine where to best allocate time and resources. How much time users spend on each social network and how engaged and interactive they are with content there are increasingly important ways of evaluating the sites.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Tomorrow’s metric for news is action
Nieman Journalism Lab reporting:
The tools we use to measure the value of our journalism seem to fail us:
Metrics don’t match our lofty objectives, or their innate inflexibility forces us to
chase the wrong goals. They’ve proven especially vexing in the digital era, with so
many available and wide disagreement over which ones ought to matter. On both
the editorial and business sides of what we do, the measurements we’re using
consistently seem behind the times.
But metrics are important, because what we measure, we tend to become. Chasing ratings tilts TV news toward celebretainment. Chasing pageviews leads to annoying slideshow page reloads.
This year, the problematic pageview seemed to give way to “social lift” or some measure of sharing reach.
And time on site or time reading became key proxies for the “engagement” we all seek. The innovative platform (and aggregator) Medium considers time reading its key metric. And the squishydefinition of “quality” for Facebook includes “something that leads you to stay away from Facebook for awhile.”
By next year, I expect someone will crack the code of how to measure something more sophisticated: journalism’s influence, be it in civic action or cultural outcomes. Today’s metric may be time, but tomorrow’s is action.
This isn’t a new issue. Public media held “impact summits” nearly four years ago identifying the five elements we need in order to measure journalism’simpact. These days, ProPublica diligently tracks reactions to its work — their
investigations follow the impact of their revelations. The Solutions Journalism Network identifies solutions or actions by design. And the Knight-MozillaFellowship at The New York Times is crafted specifically around figuring out how
we measure the results of our work in the civic sphere. So getting to a more sophisticated metric is work that’s already well under way. 2014 could be the year we figure it out.
We’ve arrived at a choice cultural moment for an action or “impact” measurement. We have smaller, more fractured communities, highly decentralized civic involvement, and ever-personalized media. Since the link between journalism and civic action often reveals itself most clearly at the local level, the circumstances are right for a new way to measure it.
First, the community situation. On my beat, the one clear theme that’s emerged is how often connections in the cloud have fed the formation of tighter and more specific offline communities. Tomorrow’s hot communities are as narrow as “the people of Powder Mountain, Utah,” a group that came together to purchase a single mountain for the purpose of creating place around a sharedethos. Or “the people who live in one house in San Francisco” — a community of like-minded millennials who came together to build community in a house bysharing food, cars, and ideas. Local communities are becoming smaller subsets as software reorganizes the world.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/12/tomorrows-metric-for-news-is-action/
But metrics are important, because what we measure, we tend to become. Chasing ratings tilts TV news toward celebretainment. Chasing pageviews leads to annoying slideshow page reloads.
This year, the problematic pageview seemed to give way to “social lift” or some measure of sharing reach.
And time on site or time reading became key proxies for the “engagement” we all seek. The innovative platform (and aggregator) Medium considers time reading its key metric. And the squishydefinition of “quality” for Facebook includes “something that leads you to stay away from Facebook for awhile.”
By next year, I expect someone will crack the code of how to measure something more sophisticated: journalism’s influence, be it in civic action or cultural outcomes. Today’s metric may be time, but tomorrow’s is action.
This isn’t a new issue. Public media held “impact summits” nearly four years ago identifying the five elements we need in order to measure journalism’simpact. These days, ProPublica diligently tracks reactions to its work — their
investigations follow the impact of their revelations. The Solutions Journalism Network identifies solutions or actions by design. And the Knight-MozillaFellowship at The New York Times is crafted specifically around figuring out how
we measure the results of our work in the civic sphere. So getting to a more sophisticated metric is work that’s already well under way. 2014 could be the year we figure it out.
We’ve arrived at a choice cultural moment for an action or “impact” measurement. We have smaller, more fractured communities, highly decentralized civic involvement, and ever-personalized media. Since the link between journalism and civic action often reveals itself most clearly at the local level, the circumstances are right for a new way to measure it.
First, the community situation. On my beat, the one clear theme that’s emerged is how often connections in the cloud have fed the formation of tighter and more specific offline communities. Tomorrow’s hot communities are as narrow as “the people of Powder Mountain, Utah,” a group that came together to purchase a single mountain for the purpose of creating place around a sharedethos. Or “the people who live in one house in San Francisco” — a community of like-minded millennials who came together to build community in a house bysharing food, cars, and ideas. Local communities are becoming smaller subsets as software reorganizes the world.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/12/tomorrows-metric-for-news-is-action/
Day-old news won’t cut it in print anymore
Nieman Journalism Lab reporting:
If you asked me what are the three main challenges of any newspaper
company today, my answer would be:
first, to evolve from mono-media companies to multimedia information engines;
second, to integrate all your editorial and business resources into an open multimedia newsroom;
and third, to rethink and reinvent the editorial models of your print products in this new multimedia landscape.
All of them are unavoidable. The first one must be led by owners, CEOs, and publishers. The second one needs the understanding and full support of top editors and general managers. And the third one, the most crucial one, the participation and involvement of all journalists.
Bosses can rule on vision, strategy, integration, and media architecture — but only with all your journalists aboard your company will be able to develop new editorial models.
Why? Because most of your editors, writers, reporters, and visual journalists came to your company when the print newspaper had an editorial model that for centuries nobody challenged. Newspaper newsrooms were, and always will be, the “core” of our news business. They were the best to find, select, write, edit, and design news and stories that your readers couldn’t find anywhere else.
For this reason, we presented ourselves as “newspapers of record.” Something that, today, we aren’t anymore. As The New York Times says: “We
don’t record the news. We find the news.” A training manual for new Financial Times journalists is very clear on this point: “News reporters do two things. They find the news and they write news. The first is hugely more important.”
In the past, every 24 hours, our newsrooms were able to produce a print newspaper with exclusive content, and readers needed to pay for our daily selection of the most relevant and interesting news and stories of the day before.
But that model has crashed. It’s dead and doesn’t work anymore. “Yesterday’s newspapers” are worthless.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/12/day-old-news-wont-cut-it-in-print-anymore/
company today, my answer would be:
first, to evolve from mono-media companies to multimedia information engines;
second, to integrate all your editorial and business resources into an open multimedia newsroom;
and third, to rethink and reinvent the editorial models of your print products in this new multimedia landscape.
All of them are unavoidable. The first one must be led by owners, CEOs, and publishers. The second one needs the understanding and full support of top editors and general managers. And the third one, the most crucial one, the participation and involvement of all journalists.
Bosses can rule on vision, strategy, integration, and media architecture — but only with all your journalists aboard your company will be able to develop new editorial models.
Why? Because most of your editors, writers, reporters, and visual journalists came to your company when the print newspaper had an editorial model that for centuries nobody challenged. Newspaper newsrooms were, and always will be, the “core” of our news business. They were the best to find, select, write, edit, and design news and stories that your readers couldn’t find anywhere else.
For this reason, we presented ourselves as “newspapers of record.” Something that, today, we aren’t anymore. As The New York Times says: “We
don’t record the news. We find the news.” A training manual for new Financial Times journalists is very clear on this point: “News reporters do two things. They find the news and they write news. The first is hugely more important.”
In the past, every 24 hours, our newsrooms were able to produce a print newspaper with exclusive content, and readers needed to pay for our daily selection of the most relevant and interesting news and stories of the day before.
But that model has crashed. It’s dead and doesn’t work anymore. “Yesterday’s newspapers” are worthless.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/12/day-old-news-wont-cut-it-in-print-anymore/
The future of news is anticipation “
Nieman Journalism Lab reporting:
One of the most important trends going into 2014 is the wave of
sophisticated algorithms and processes that will forever change how journalism is
both created and consumed. They are inherently social, but not in the way you
may think. And they rely on the vast repositories of data we generate each time
we connect, whether that’s searching Google for a restaurant, wishing friends
happy birthday on Facebook, or posting an in-line annotation on Medium.
This past year, we saw the first anticipatory computing opportunities in Google Now, which originally launched as part
of the Android operating system, and an app called MindMeld, created by former MIT
researcher and current Expect Labs CEO Tim
Tuttle. In short, apps like Google Now and
MindMeld observe the last few minutes of your thought process in order to predict the next 10 seconds.
In the case of Google Now, if you’ve been searching Google for information about the new movie Inside Llewyn Davis and then ask it “Where is it playing?” Google Now assumes you want to know the nearest movie theater, times, and perhaps even directions on how to get there from where you’re standing. MindMeld offers something even more exciting. When users are connected, it listens in and begins to populate its dashboard with contextual information to help you have a more informed conversation. So if you’re talking with a friend about Llewyn Davis, MindMeld will automatically show history about the 1960s folk scene, the cast, directors, details about the soundtrack, reviews and more.
In the hands of journalists, these and the other emergent anticipatory computing applications can be harnessed as powerful reporters’ assistants. Google Now can query calendars, traffic, weather, and news to deliver just the right information at the right time.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/12/the-future-of-news-is-anticipation/
This past year, we saw the first anticipatory computing opportunities in Google Now, which originally launched as part
of the Android operating system, and an app called MindMeld, created by former MIT
researcher and current Expect Labs CEO Tim
Tuttle. In short, apps like Google Now and
MindMeld observe the last few minutes of your thought process in order to predict the next 10 seconds.
In the case of Google Now, if you’ve been searching Google for information about the new movie Inside Llewyn Davis and then ask it “Where is it playing?” Google Now assumes you want to know the nearest movie theater, times, and perhaps even directions on how to get there from where you’re standing. MindMeld offers something even more exciting. When users are connected, it listens in and begins to populate its dashboard with contextual information to help you have a more informed conversation. So if you’re talking with a friend about Llewyn Davis, MindMeld will automatically show history about the 1960s folk scene, the cast, directors, details about the soundtrack, reviews and more.
In the hands of journalists, these and the other emergent anticipatory computing applications can be harnessed as powerful reporters’ assistants. Google Now can query calendars, traffic, weather, and news to deliver just the right information at the right time.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/12/the-future-of-news-is-anticipation/
Loosen the newsroom’s chokehold on the brand
Nieman Journalism Lab reporting:
Any American editor will proudly tell you that the newsroom — and
especially The Editor — is the sole custodian of the news(paper) brand, the true
keeper of what the masthead is really meant to represent.
And if you ask anyone on the business side at most American publishing houses — especially in the advertising/sales department — you will likely hear a grudging acknowledgment of this odd reality, an admission that the newsroom does have the final, veto-proof say on the vast majority of issues involving the use of the brand.
There is a good reason for this unchallenged, even if incongruous, reality. For
decades, when newspaper ad departments were essentially order-takers, simply “booking” ads and incoming revenue, all that a news brand — such as The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times or The Washington Post — stood for, was entirely the journalism, which until very recently was merely the physical newspaper. There was little need to “extend” the brand, to find new ways to use the masthead’s name — and more critically, the news brand’s relationship to customers — to generate other revenue. Over time, the editor and the newsroom’s grip on what the brand is, what it should be and also what it couldn’t be, became embedded in the very foundation of the Church and State demarcation. A fait accompli, if you will.
Just how has this “newsroom owning the brand” manifested itself in most mainstream American newsrooms? In 2013 alone, we saw:
High profile, creative journalism experiences mostly run ad-free, with highly engaging acts of digital storytelling actually generating negative revenue for publishers (because even normal ads on the website were deliberately “designed out,” essentially turned off on these pages, instead of accommodating new kinds of sponsorships/ads).
Conversations about how a publisher’s advertising team and their non-news content-creators can engage and work with deep-pocketed brands wanting to become storytellers have stalled over some genuine and largely unproven newsroom fears that sponsored content/native advertising will be the ruin of their news brand.
Media critics, usually former editors/reporters who don’t have the burden of funding a newsroom — continue to feel rather well qualified, as de facto guardians of the news brand, to use their bully pulpits to publicly challenge any and all brand extensions, be it events, a themed cruise or any branded, paid-for service, including even the mere existence of shopping on news web sites.
Newsrooms and editors blithely citing “reader perception” issues, often without any actual and measurable evidence, to stonewall transparent and user-friendly ecommerce hyperlinks or, heaven forbid, serving contextual product ads.
Paywalls are owned by circulation when it comes to generating paying customers for journalism, yet newsrooms continue to insist on owning critical content levers that can be used by circulation to help drive conversion of “drive-by” audiences into paying audiences.
Now, wishfully, let us fast forward into 2014.
If publishers are to build sustainable business models through a combination of advertising dollars, reader revenue, and smart adjacent businesses, then one of the biggest stumbling blocks will be this prevailing, meek public acceptance of the newsroom’s primary ownership of the brand by those in product, advertising, circulation, marketing, public relations, and indeed by many publishers.
Just because a news “brand” was almost never leveraged for anything other than journalism for decades doesn’t entitle a newsroom to its veto-proof card, especially when such power currently comes without real accountability to help sustain the brand, not just the brand’s perceived reputation but also its financial health.
Don’t get me wrong. The complaints that editors — and many journalists — express, often mostly in private, about their “business” side — they don’t read or understand the product; they can’t seem to sell what news does well but always want something new; they only care about closing an ad buy and not about readers — aren’t entirely made up, even if they are way overdone.
But for the news brand to succeed and a publishing house to find sustainable business models for journalism (usually the single largest expense for a publisher), the brand has to be co-owned: by those who create journalism, those who can turn that journalism into a product, those who try and monetize that product, and those who support and promote that entire package. Editors, by virtue of their critical role as maestros of journalism, will always be first among equals in any publishing house that values honest, independent journalism. Still, the privileged status a newsroom enjoys ought to come with accountability and a responsibility to help sustain both journalism and the business of journalism.
For 2014, here are six specific suggestions for publishers to help loosen the newsroom’s default chokehold on the news brand, and try to more formally connect daily acts of journalism to the long-term business of funding that journalism:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/12/loosen-the-newsrooms-chokehold-on-the-brand/
And if you ask anyone on the business side at most American publishing houses — especially in the advertising/sales department — you will likely hear a grudging acknowledgment of this odd reality, an admission that the newsroom does have the final, veto-proof say on the vast majority of issues involving the use of the brand.
There is a good reason for this unchallenged, even if incongruous, reality. For
decades, when newspaper ad departments were essentially order-takers, simply “booking” ads and incoming revenue, all that a news brand — such as The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times or The Washington Post — stood for, was entirely the journalism, which until very recently was merely the physical newspaper. There was little need to “extend” the brand, to find new ways to use the masthead’s name — and more critically, the news brand’s relationship to customers — to generate other revenue. Over time, the editor and the newsroom’s grip on what the brand is, what it should be and also what it couldn’t be, became embedded in the very foundation of the Church and State demarcation. A fait accompli, if you will.
Just how has this “newsroom owning the brand” manifested itself in most mainstream American newsrooms? In 2013 alone, we saw:
High profile, creative journalism experiences mostly run ad-free, with highly engaging acts of digital storytelling actually generating negative revenue for publishers (because even normal ads on the website were deliberately “designed out,” essentially turned off on these pages, instead of accommodating new kinds of sponsorships/ads).
Conversations about how a publisher’s advertising team and their non-news content-creators can engage and work with deep-pocketed brands wanting to become storytellers have stalled over some genuine and largely unproven newsroom fears that sponsored content/native advertising will be the ruin of their news brand.
Media critics, usually former editors/reporters who don’t have the burden of funding a newsroom — continue to feel rather well qualified, as de facto guardians of the news brand, to use their bully pulpits to publicly challenge any and all brand extensions, be it events, a themed cruise or any branded, paid-for service, including even the mere existence of shopping on news web sites.
Newsrooms and editors blithely citing “reader perception” issues, often without any actual and measurable evidence, to stonewall transparent and user-friendly ecommerce hyperlinks or, heaven forbid, serving contextual product ads.
Paywalls are owned by circulation when it comes to generating paying customers for journalism, yet newsrooms continue to insist on owning critical content levers that can be used by circulation to help drive conversion of “drive-by” audiences into paying audiences.
Now, wishfully, let us fast forward into 2014.
If publishers are to build sustainable business models through a combination of advertising dollars, reader revenue, and smart adjacent businesses, then one of the biggest stumbling blocks will be this prevailing, meek public acceptance of the newsroom’s primary ownership of the brand by those in product, advertising, circulation, marketing, public relations, and indeed by many publishers.
Just because a news “brand” was almost never leveraged for anything other than journalism for decades doesn’t entitle a newsroom to its veto-proof card, especially when such power currently comes without real accountability to help sustain the brand, not just the brand’s perceived reputation but also its financial health.
Don’t get me wrong. The complaints that editors — and many journalists — express, often mostly in private, about their “business” side — they don’t read or understand the product; they can’t seem to sell what news does well but always want something new; they only care about closing an ad buy and not about readers — aren’t entirely made up, even if they are way overdone.
But for the news brand to succeed and a publishing house to find sustainable business models for journalism (usually the single largest expense for a publisher), the brand has to be co-owned: by those who create journalism, those who can turn that journalism into a product, those who try and monetize that product, and those who support and promote that entire package. Editors, by virtue of their critical role as maestros of journalism, will always be first among equals in any publishing house that values honest, independent journalism. Still, the privileged status a newsroom enjoys ought to come with accountability and a responsibility to help sustain both journalism and the business of journalism.
For 2014, here are six specific suggestions for publishers to help loosen the newsroom’s default chokehold on the news brand, and try to more formally connect daily acts of journalism to the long-term business of funding that journalism:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/12/loosen-the-newsrooms-chokehold-on-the-brand/
Ken Doctor reporting:
Face it, print advertising is becoming a niche, even if it’s a big one. Through the end of last year, newspapers’ print ad revenues were down 60 percent since the height of 2005, to $18.9 billion from $47.4 billion in the U.S. That’s almost a $30 billion difference in seven years. This year’s decline should roughly match last year’s of 9 percent, and many publishers project about the same loss for 2014. If those numbers hold, that means by the end of 2015, print ad revenues will total $15.6 billion — only around $4 billion more than where reader revenues may then come in.
The continued decline of print advertising is the very dark cloud hanging over the news industry and the darkening ones looming over the magazine industry. While digital advertising overtook print advertising in 2012 in the U.S. and globally, the accelerated pace of the print to digital movement is clear and fairly unwavering.
The test for 2014: How can publishers mitigate their print losses, pulling from an expanding toolbox of sponsored sections, events packages, custom publishing, and more to minimize as much as possible a near-universal negative number?
Digital advertising separates the pack
Last year, U.S. newspapers were up 4 percent in digital advertising, to a total of 11 percent of revenue. This year’s reports indicate that growth could well be less, closer to flattish, with many publishers struggling near the zero point. Yet some, which we’ll investigate in early 2014, are in double-digits. That’s a combination of executing on some of the ad buzzwords of the time — content marketing, native ads — but also on much less glamorous and written-about work like audience extension and yield optimization.
The test for 2014: With print ads spiraling downward, will the failure to execute on a strong and diversified digital ad strategy doom news organizations to even deeper cuts in staff and product?
...Mobility, mobility, mobility
There’s simply no way to over-emphasize the centrality of getting smartphone and tablet experiences right for news customers. This year, we’ve seen newspaper access move from around 25 to 35 percent mobile access, with TV stations in a similar range. Startup news sites, significantly, report 50 percent or more of their views coming from mobile. As importantly, mobile advertising in the U.S. will double to $9.6 billion from $4.4 billion. Google will take about half of that, Facebook 15 percent, with only a couple of dozen publishers are taking in serious money.
The test for 2014: If news publishers don’t make 2014 the year of mobile-first content and sales development, they have slim hopes of growing digital ad revenue over the next several years.
http://newsonomics.com/the-newsonomics-of-how-the-news-industry-will-be-tested-in-2014/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Newsonomics+%28Newsonomics%29
Face it, print advertising is becoming a niche, even if it’s a big one. Through the end of last year, newspapers’ print ad revenues were down 60 percent since the height of 2005, to $18.9 billion from $47.4 billion in the U.S. That’s almost a $30 billion difference in seven years. This year’s decline should roughly match last year’s of 9 percent, and many publishers project about the same loss for 2014. If those numbers hold, that means by the end of 2015, print ad revenues will total $15.6 billion — only around $4 billion more than where reader revenues may then come in.
The continued decline of print advertising is the very dark cloud hanging over the news industry and the darkening ones looming over the magazine industry. While digital advertising overtook print advertising in 2012 in the U.S. and globally, the accelerated pace of the print to digital movement is clear and fairly unwavering.
The test for 2014: How can publishers mitigate their print losses, pulling from an expanding toolbox of sponsored sections, events packages, custom publishing, and more to minimize as much as possible a near-universal negative number?
Digital advertising separates the pack
Last year, U.S. newspapers were up 4 percent in digital advertising, to a total of 11 percent of revenue. This year’s reports indicate that growth could well be less, closer to flattish, with many publishers struggling near the zero point. Yet some, which we’ll investigate in early 2014, are in double-digits. That’s a combination of executing on some of the ad buzzwords of the time — content marketing, native ads — but also on much less glamorous and written-about work like audience extension and yield optimization.
The test for 2014: With print ads spiraling downward, will the failure to execute on a strong and diversified digital ad strategy doom news organizations to even deeper cuts in staff and product?
...Mobility, mobility, mobility
There’s simply no way to over-emphasize the centrality of getting smartphone and tablet experiences right for news customers. This year, we’ve seen newspaper access move from around 25 to 35 percent mobile access, with TV stations in a similar range. Startup news sites, significantly, report 50 percent or more of their views coming from mobile. As importantly, mobile advertising in the U.S. will double to $9.6 billion from $4.4 billion. Google will take about half of that, Facebook 15 percent, with only a couple of dozen publishers are taking in serious money.
The test for 2014: If news publishers don’t make 2014 the year of mobile-first content and sales development, they have slim hopes of growing digital ad revenue over the next several years.
http://newsonomics.com/the-newsonomics-of-how-the-news-industry-will-be-tested-in-2014/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Newsonomics+%28Newsonomics%29
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Rising Paywalls Are Already Paying Off for Publishers
Mashable reporting:
Not long ago, Bloomberg Businessweek declared 2014 the “Year of the Paywall” for the news industry. Sure enough, everywhere you look in publishing these days, you see news organizations ranging from Politico (and its Capital New York offshoot) to the new tech-oriented website the Information experimenting with online-subscription models. “I would not start a media company today based on advertising alone,” Politico Chief Executive Officer Jim VandeHei told Businessweek recently. “I think it would be crazy.”
This week, the Online Publishers Association, an industry trade organization, released a study that highlights the various ways newspapers and magazines are using paywalls to shape and expand their businesses. The group conducted interviews with executives at Condé Nast, Gannett Community Newspapers, Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, Time, and The Wall Street Journal. The study is worth a read. Here are three, quick take-aways:
1. Online Subscriptions Don’t Cannibalize Print Subscriptions.
For years, publishers worried that offering digital subscription models
would inadvertently peel away diehard customers from their print
products. As it turns out, pay-per-view digital products tend to attract
an entirely different set of subscribers.
2. Digital Data Can Cut Down on Subscriber Churn.
Publishers are using the wealth of data about their customers online to
calculate their lifetime value as a subscriber, to predict outcomes of
trial subscriptions, and to shape strategies to hold onto them longer.
3. Charging for Content Often Makes a Publisher’s Ad Space More Valuable.
Some publishers are finding they can charge higher rates for ads
appearing in subscription environments. “We have grown advertising
business every single year since we’ve introduced subscription,” said
Rob Grimshaw, managing director of the Financial Times’
FT.com website. “Because of the deep relationship we have with the
audience and the data we have on our subscribers, we can guarantee that
advertisers reach very specific scarce audiences.”
http://mashable.com/2013/12/14/paywall-benefits/?utm_cid=mash-prod-email-topstories&utm_emailalert=daily&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily
Not long ago, Bloomberg Businessweek declared 2014 the “Year of the Paywall” for the news industry. Sure enough, everywhere you look in publishing these days, you see news organizations ranging from Politico (and its Capital New York offshoot) to the new tech-oriented website the Information experimenting with online-subscription models. “I would not start a media company today based on advertising alone,” Politico Chief Executive Officer Jim VandeHei told Businessweek recently. “I think it would be crazy.”
This week, the Online Publishers Association, an industry trade organization, released a study that highlights the various ways newspapers and magazines are using paywalls to shape and expand their businesses. The group conducted interviews with executives at Condé Nast, Gannett Community Newspapers, Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, Time, and The Wall Street Journal. The study is worth a read. Here are three, quick take-aways:
SEE ALSO: How to Build a Paywall
http://mashable.com/2013/12/14/paywall-benefits/?utm_cid=mash-prod-email-topstories&utm_emailalert=daily&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Facebook wants to be a newspaper — meet the new boss, same as the old boss
gigaoma reporting:
As Facebook rolls out some new algorithms relating to its main News Feed, there has been a lot of attention paid to who might win and who might lose as the social network reshuffles its ranking system for content. But the bigger picture behind all these moves, as Mike Isaac notes in a piece at All Things Digital, is that Facebook is asserting even more of its control over what users see, as part of its goal to become a kind of digital newspaper.
This sounds like a laudable goal, especially for people who like newspapers. But in doing this — as I’ve tried to point out before — Facebook is in danger of running into the exact same kinds of problems that actual newspapers are wrestling with, both in terms of content and advertising.
...But beyond all of the jockeying for position when it comes to who gets favored by Facebook and who doesn’t, the motivation behind the latest moves is clear — it wants to show users what it thinks is “high quality” content, instead of the stuff that users have actually said they want to see, by voting on it with their clicks. This is the same kind of gatekeeper mentality that newspapers have been addicted to since they used to own the information channel.
http://gigaom.com/2013/12/11/facebook-wants-to-be-a-newspaper-meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss/
As Facebook rolls out some new algorithms relating to its main News Feed, there has been a lot of attention paid to who might win and who might lose as the social network reshuffles its ranking system for content. But the bigger picture behind all these moves, as Mike Isaac notes in a piece at All Things Digital, is that Facebook is asserting even more of its control over what users see, as part of its goal to become a kind of digital newspaper.
This sounds like a laudable goal, especially for people who like newspapers. But in doing this — as I’ve tried to point out before — Facebook is in danger of running into the exact same kinds of problems that actual newspapers are wrestling with, both in terms of content and advertising.
...But beyond all of the jockeying for position when it comes to who gets favored by Facebook and who doesn’t, the motivation behind the latest moves is clear — it wants to show users what it thinks is “high quality” content, instead of the stuff that users have actually said they want to see, by voting on it with their clicks. This is the same kind of gatekeeper mentality that newspapers have been addicted to since they used to own the information channel.
http://gigaom.com/2013/12/11/facebook-wants-to-be-a-newspaper-meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss/
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Strategy: how Axel Springer calculated and then bought its way to European digital dominance
wh'teboard reporting:
I wonder if the European digital economy will follow ‘Lineker’s Law’: 22 startups try to become the winner who takes all, and in the end the Germans win. It looks a bit like it, when you look at Axel Springers rise to digital dominance in the last half decade. From virtually zero – “a mere internet midget” according to the Financial Times Deutschland, Axel Springer strategized, calculated and shopped itself to the very top of the European digital ranking for publishing houses.
2012 was the first year that Axel Springer derived more revenue from its digital properties than from its national newspapers – and those print publications are not the least (Springer’s tabloid Bild, still printed on 3 million copies, can move public opinion all by itself). In Q1 of 2013, Springer’s Digital Media division again reaffirmed its position as the group’s strongest operating segment by increasing its revenues a whopping 20.9 percent compared to the first quarter of 2012.
So naturally, after my talk with Schibsted, I also wanted to hear about how Axel Springer is reshaping itself into a digital company. Schibsted decided very early on to put a lot of firepower behind classifieds, adopting the motto “the internet is made for classifieds, and classifieds are made for the internet”.
Schibsted innovates radically, following Clay Christensen’s advice on how to disrupt yourself almost to the letter. Spin out, spin in, allow spun out brands to compete at lower prices with its own parent brands, the works.
http://www.whiteboardmag.com/strategy-how-axel-springer-calculated-and-then-bought-its-way-to-european-digital-dominance/?utm_source=API%27s+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=f4f0149392-Need_to_Know_December_6_201312_6_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-f4f0149392-31701933
I wonder if the European digital economy will follow ‘Lineker’s Law’: 22 startups try to become the winner who takes all, and in the end the Germans win. It looks a bit like it, when you look at Axel Springers rise to digital dominance in the last half decade. From virtually zero – “a mere internet midget” according to the Financial Times Deutschland, Axel Springer strategized, calculated and shopped itself to the very top of the European digital ranking for publishing houses.
2012 was the first year that Axel Springer derived more revenue from its digital properties than from its national newspapers – and those print publications are not the least (Springer’s tabloid Bild, still printed on 3 million copies, can move public opinion all by itself). In Q1 of 2013, Springer’s Digital Media division again reaffirmed its position as the group’s strongest operating segment by increasing its revenues a whopping 20.9 percent compared to the first quarter of 2012.
So naturally, after my talk with Schibsted, I also wanted to hear about how Axel Springer is reshaping itself into a digital company. Schibsted decided very early on to put a lot of firepower behind classifieds, adopting the motto “the internet is made for classifieds, and classifieds are made for the internet”.
Schibsted innovates radically, following Clay Christensen’s advice on how to disrupt yourself almost to the letter. Spin out, spin in, allow spun out brands to compete at lower prices with its own parent brands, the works.
http://www.whiteboardmag.com/strategy-how-axel-springer-calculated-and-then-bought-its-way-to-european-digital-dominance/?utm_source=API%27s+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=f4f0149392-Need_to_Know_December_6_201312_6_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-f4f0149392-31701933
New MIT Media Lab Tool Lets Anyone Visualize Unwieldy Government Data
Fastcompany reporting: In the four years since the U.S. government created data.gov, the first
national repository for open data, more than 400,000 datasets have
become available online from 175 agencies like the USDA, the Department
of Energy, and the EPA. Governments all over the world
have taken steps to make their data more transparent and available to
the public. But in practice, much of that data--accessible as
spreadsheets through sites like data.gov--is incomprehensible to the
average person, who might not know how to wrangle huge data sets.
Never-ending tables mean next to nothing to me, even if I know that they
might be hiding some interesting relationship within their numbers,
like how income stacks up with happiness.
To wade through what César Hidalgo, director of the Macro Connections group at the MIT Media Lab, calls "the last 10 inches" separating people from their government's incoherent tables and spreadsheets, Hidalgo turned to visualization. DataViva, a website Hidalgo and a few collaborators helped develop with the Brazilian state government of Minas Gerais, offers a wide array of web apps that turn those spreadsheets into something more comprehensible for the average user, whether that's a policy maker, someone working for the World Bank, an entrepreneur, or a student. The site, which officially launched last week, can be a bit overwhelming to navigate, but it has lofty goals: to visualize data encompassing the entire Brazilian economy over the last decade, with more than 100 million interactive visualizations that can be created at the touch of a button in a series of apps. The future of open government isn't just dumping raw datasets onto a server: It's also about making those datasets digestible for a less data-savvy public.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3022701/innovation-by-design/new-mit-media-lab-tool-lets-anyone-visualize-unwieldy-government-data?utm_source=API%27s+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=f4f0149392-Need_to_Know_December_6_201312_6_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-f4f0149392-31701933
To wade through what César Hidalgo, director of the Macro Connections group at the MIT Media Lab, calls "the last 10 inches" separating people from their government's incoherent tables and spreadsheets, Hidalgo turned to visualization. DataViva, a website Hidalgo and a few collaborators helped develop with the Brazilian state government of Minas Gerais, offers a wide array of web apps that turn those spreadsheets into something more comprehensible for the average user, whether that's a policy maker, someone working for the World Bank, an entrepreneur, or a student. The site, which officially launched last week, can be a bit overwhelming to navigate, but it has lofty goals: to visualize data encompassing the entire Brazilian economy over the last decade, with more than 100 million interactive visualizations that can be created at the touch of a button in a series of apps. The future of open government isn't just dumping raw datasets onto a server: It's also about making those datasets digestible for a less data-savvy public.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3022701/innovation-by-design/new-mit-media-lab-tool-lets-anyone-visualize-unwieldy-government-data?utm_source=API%27s+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=f4f0149392-Need_to_Know_December_6_201312_6_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-f4f0149392-31701933
Harvard Business Review reporting:
I’m waiting for all the headlines about what a great time it is to be in the media business. After all, in a single minute, viewers on YouTube watch 100 hours of video — a 233% increase since last year. The number of devices people use to “consume content” — the anodyne catchall term we use to describe reading, watching, and listening — is also surging: a report by Cisco suggested that by the end of this year, the world would contain more mobile devices than people, devices that are increasingly used to find and share information and less used to make actual phone calls to loved ones. Speaking of which, we love content so much that we now spend more time looking at our phones than at our partners. Overall, our time spent taking in information is on the rise. In 2010, the average American spent 10 hours and 46 minutes a day consuming content; by 2013, that number had risen to 12 hours and 5 minutes.
And yet most coverage of the media industry is elegiac — a lament for the days of print. So even when the news is good, the headlines are bad.
Take the recent column by David Carr in the New York Times on New York magazine, a perfect example of a needlessly dismayed reaction to an industry in transition. In it, you learn:
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/12/publishers-stop-crying-over-spilled-ink/?utm_content=buffer2b56b&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer
I’m waiting for all the headlines about what a great time it is to be in the media business. After all, in a single minute, viewers on YouTube watch 100 hours of video — a 233% increase since last year. The number of devices people use to “consume content” — the anodyne catchall term we use to describe reading, watching, and listening — is also surging: a report by Cisco suggested that by the end of this year, the world would contain more mobile devices than people, devices that are increasingly used to find and share information and less used to make actual phone calls to loved ones. Speaking of which, we love content so much that we now spend more time looking at our phones than at our partners. Overall, our time spent taking in information is on the rise. In 2010, the average American spent 10 hours and 46 minutes a day consuming content; by 2013, that number had risen to 12 hours and 5 minutes.
And yet most coverage of the media industry is elegiac — a lament for the days of print. So even when the news is good, the headlines are bad.
Take the recent column by David Carr in the New York Times on New York magazine, a perfect example of a needlessly dismayed reaction to an industry in transition. In it, you learn:
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/12/publishers-stop-crying-over-spilled-ink/?utm_content=buffer2b56b&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer
Friday, November 15, 2013
Americans Show Signs of Leaving a News Outlet, Citing Less Information
Pew reporting:
By Jodi Enda and Amy Mitchell of the Pew Research Center
Faced with shrinking revenue and dwindling audiences, news organizations in recent years have slashed staffs and reduced coverage. Most news consumers are little aware of the financial struggles that led to these cuts, a new Pew Research Center survey finds. Nevertheless, a significant percentage of them not only have noticed a difference in the quantity or quality of news, but have stopped reading, watching or listening to a news source because of it.
Nearly one-third—31%—of people say they have deserted a particular news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to, according to the survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults in early 2013. And those most likely to have walked away are better educated, wealthier and older than those who did not—in other words, they are people who tend to be most prone to consume and pay for news.
http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/special-reports-landing-page/citing-reduced-quality-many-americans-abandon-news-outlets/
By Jodi Enda and Amy Mitchell of the Pew Research Center
Faced with shrinking revenue and dwindling audiences, news organizations in recent years have slashed staffs and reduced coverage. Most news consumers are little aware of the financial struggles that led to these cuts, a new Pew Research Center survey finds. Nevertheless, a significant percentage of them not only have noticed a difference in the quantity or quality of news, but have stopped reading, watching or listening to a news source because of it.
Nearly one-third—31%—of people say they have deserted a particular news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to, according to the survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults in early 2013. And those most likely to have walked away are better educated, wealthier and older than those who did not—in other words, they are people who tend to be most prone to consume and pay for news.
http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/special-reports-landing-page/citing-reduced-quality-many-americans-abandon-news-outlets/
News Use across Social Media Platforms
Pew reporting:
How do different social networking websites stack up when it comes to news? How many people engage with news across multiple social sites? And what are their news consumption habits on traditional platforms? As part of an ongoing examination of social media and news, the Pew Research Center in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation analyzed the characteristics of news consumers and the size of their population across 11 social networking sites.
News plays a varying role across the social networking sites.1 Roughly half of both Facebook and Twitter users get news on those sites, earlier reports have shown. On YouTube, that is true of only one-fifth of its user base, and for LinkedIn, the number is even smaller. And Pinterest, a social pin board for visual content, is hardly used for news at all.
he proportions who get news, combined with the total reach of a site, show how many U.S. adults are learning about events and issues through each social networking site. Facebook is by far the largest social networking site among U.S. adults, and with half of its users getting news there, is also the largest among U.S. adults when it comes to getting news. As discussed in an earlier report, roughly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults use the site, and half of those users get news there—amounting to 30% of the general population. YouTube has the next greatest reach in terms of general usage, at 51% of U.S. adults. Thus, even though only a fifth of its users get news there, that amounts to 10% of the adult population, which puts it on par with Twitter. Twitter reaches just 16% of U.S. adults, but half (8% of U.S. adults) use it for news. reddit is a news destination for nearly two-thirds of its users (62%). But since just 3% of the U.S. population uses reddit, that translates to 2% of the population that gets news there...
http://www.journalism.org/2013/11/14/news-use-across-social-media-platforms/1_news-consumption-varies-widely/
How do different social networking websites stack up when it comes to news? How many people engage with news across multiple social sites? And what are their news consumption habits on traditional platforms? As part of an ongoing examination of social media and news, the Pew Research Center in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation analyzed the characteristics of news consumers and the size of their population across 11 social networking sites.
News plays a varying role across the social networking sites.1 Roughly half of both Facebook and Twitter users get news on those sites, earlier reports have shown. On YouTube, that is true of only one-fifth of its user base, and for LinkedIn, the number is even smaller. And Pinterest, a social pin board for visual content, is hardly used for news at all.
he proportions who get news, combined with the total reach of a site, show how many U.S. adults are learning about events and issues through each social networking site. Facebook is by far the largest social networking site among U.S. adults, and with half of its users getting news there, is also the largest among U.S. adults when it comes to getting news. As discussed in an earlier report, roughly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults use the site, and half of those users get news there—amounting to 30% of the general population. YouTube has the next greatest reach in terms of general usage, at 51% of U.S. adults. Thus, even though only a fifth of its users get news there, that amounts to 10% of the adult population, which puts it on par with Twitter. Twitter reaches just 16% of U.S. adults, but half (8% of U.S. adults) use it for news. reddit is a news destination for nearly two-thirds of its users (62%). But since just 3% of the U.S. population uses reddit, that translates to 2% of the population that gets news there...
http://www.journalism.org/2013/11/14/news-use-across-social-media-platforms/1_news-consumption-varies-widely/
Facebook users get news from family & friends, Twitter users get news from journalists
Poynter reprting:
Today’s annual report on the State of the News Media shows that new technologies really are pressing journalists to do much more with much less.
Last week, we learned that newspaper industry ad revenue was down 7.3 percent this year to its lowest level since 1984 (or 1954, adjusted for inflation). As a result, newsrooms continue to shrink.
But The Project For Excellence in Journalism’s report shows us that the needs and demands of the audience are growing and fragmenting.
Social media is an important source of news, the report says, but remains smaller and only “supplemental” to other discovery methods like directly visiting a news website, searching the Web or browsing an aggregator.
People who own smartphones or tablets are using them heavily to consume news, but they also continue to frequently use a laptop or desktop computer to get news...
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/166909/growing-social-mobile-audiences-force-journalists-to-publish-on-more-platforms-with-less/
Today’s annual report on the State of the News Media shows that new technologies really are pressing journalists to do much more with much less.
Last week, we learned that newspaper industry ad revenue was down 7.3 percent this year to its lowest level since 1984 (or 1954, adjusted for inflation). As a result, newsrooms continue to shrink.
But The Project For Excellence in Journalism’s report shows us that the needs and demands of the audience are growing and fragmenting.
Social media is an important source of news, the report says, but remains smaller and only “supplemental” to other discovery methods like directly visiting a news website, searching the Web or browsing an aggregator.
People who own smartphones or tablets are using them heavily to consume news, but they also continue to frequently use a laptop or desktop computer to get news...
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/166909/growing-social-mobile-audiences-force-journalists-to-publish-on-more-platforms-with-less/
About a fifth of Facebook and Twitter users often get news from newspapers, too
Poynter reporting:
21 percent of Facebook users and 18 percent of Twitter users tell the Pew Research Journalism Project they get news “often” from print newspapers. The organization continues to look at how social media users get news.
21 percent of Facebook users and 18 percent of Twitter users tell the Pew Research Journalism Project they get news “often” from print newspapers. The organization continues to look at how social media users get news.
YouTube, LinkedIn and Google Plus news consumers are more likely than Facebook and Twitter news consumers to watch cable news. Twitter news consumers are among the least likely to turn to local and cable TV. And nearly four-in-ten LinkedIn news consumers listen to news on the radio, compared to about a quarter of the general population.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Rethinking how you utilize social media metrics in practice
Knight Digital Media Center reporting:
Social media metrics can help you tell whether your engagement efforts are gaining any traction in your community. But how can you know what this data is really telling you, and how can social media metrics support sound strategic decisions?
A recent article by Nancy K. Baym in the peer-reviewed online journal First Monday, “Data not seen: The uses and shortcomings of social media metrics,” explores how to make sense of the numbers.
Social media metrics can help you tell whether your engagement efforts are gaining any traction in your community. But how can you know what this data is really telling you, and how can social media metrics support sound strategic decisions?
A recent article by Nancy K. Baym in the peer-reviewed online journal First Monday, “Data not seen: The uses and shortcomings of social media metrics,” explores how to make sense of the numbers.
- Not all followers are equally valuable. A musician said in interview that he has had supporters with millions of followers recommend him on Twitter from their accounts, resulting in 70 clicks through to his website. Other advocates, with only 2,000 followers, prompted 300 click-throughs following their endorsement. This means that attention is the “currency,” not how many people you’re distributing information to. It is important to push content toward those who personally identify with your message or brand—this will drive more engagement in the long run.
- Audience size may be misleading. The prevalence of “dead followers” (i.e., inactive users attached to profile) and idle followers has been revealed in recent months, prompting a discussion about how effective quantifying the audience is in determining reach. Followers who actively share media are many times more valuable than those who are passive, content with the one-way street. Gauging the active:inactive followers ratio and manipulating it to score the most engaging users possible helps improve one’s outreach exponentially. One way of accomplishing this is to personally reach out to active users on the site, starting a dialogue that results in them lending support to your brand.
- Tailor messaging to attract influential users...
- http://www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org/news/2013/11/rethinking-how-you-utilize-social-media-metrics-practice
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
UK Consumers Still Opposed to Newspaper Paywalls
eMarketer reporting at
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Consumers-Still-Opposed-Newspaper-Paywalls/1010377
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Consumers-Still-Opposed-Newspaper-Paywalls/1010377
Digital
versions of The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers were put behind
paywalls over three years ago—in July 2010. And while their News UK
stable mate, The Sun, also put up a paywall this year, the majority of
UK news media brands continue to operate a free-content model.
With so much news content available for free, it’s perhaps unsurprising that attitudes toward paywalls in the UK remain largely negative. According to a Kantar survey conducted by Lightspeed Research, 80% of UK internet users polled in August 2013 considered newspaper paywalls either “a bad idea” or “pointless.” While 23% felt they made sense in some circumstances, only 12% considered them necessary.
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Consumers-Still-Opposed-Newspaper-Paywalls/1010377#6pCITWgbhdwQ3ejP.99
With so much news content available for free, it’s perhaps unsurprising that attitudes toward paywalls in the UK remain largely negative. According to a Kantar survey conducted by Lightspeed Research, 80% of UK internet users polled in August 2013 considered newspaper paywalls either “a bad idea” or “pointless.” While 23% felt they made sense in some circumstances, only 12% considered them necessary.
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Consumers-Still-Opposed-Newspaper-Paywalls/1010377#6pCITWgbhdwQ3ejP.99
Digital
versions of The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers were put behind
paywalls over three years ago—in July 2010. And while their News UK
stable mate, The Sun, also put up a paywall this year, the majority of
UK news media brands continue to operate a free-content model.
With so much news content available for free, it’s perhaps unsurprising that attitudes toward paywalls in the UK remain largely negative. According to a Kantar survey conducted by Lightspeed Research, 80% of UK internet users polled in August 2013 considered newspaper paywalls either “a bad idea” or “pointless.” While 23% felt they made sense in some circumstances, only 12% considered them necessary.
Whether or not paywalls are a good idea, the growing importance of digital in the news brand equation is certainly making the debate relevant. UK consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable accessing news content in the digital realm. According to a March survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), among British internet users, reading or downloading digital news was a common activity, particularly among younger demographics. It was cited by around 70% of the two youngest demographic groups, and by a sizeable majority of those ages 35 to 54.
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Consumers-Still-Opposed-Newspaper-Paywalls/1010377#6pCITWgbhdwQ3ejP.99
With so much news content available for free, it’s perhaps unsurprising that attitudes toward paywalls in the UK remain largely negative. According to a Kantar survey conducted by Lightspeed Research, 80% of UK internet users polled in August 2013 considered newspaper paywalls either “a bad idea” or “pointless.” While 23% felt they made sense in some circumstances, only 12% considered them necessary.
Whether or not paywalls are a good idea, the growing importance of digital in the news brand equation is certainly making the debate relevant. UK consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable accessing news content in the digital realm. According to a March survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), among British internet users, reading or downloading digital news was a common activity, particularly among younger demographics. It was cited by around 70% of the two youngest demographic groups, and by a sizeable majority of those ages 35 to 54.
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Consumers-Still-Opposed-Newspaper-Paywalls/1010377#6pCITWgbhdwQ3ejP.99
Digital
versions of The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers were put behind
paywalls over three years ago—in July 2010. And while their News UK
stable mate, The Sun, also put up a paywall this year, the majority of
UK news media brands continue to operate a free-content model.
With so much news content available for free, it’s perhaps unsurprising that attitudes toward paywalls in the UK remain largely negative. According to a Kantar survey conducted by Lightspeed Research, 80% of UK internet users polled in August 2013 considered newspaper paywalls either “a bad idea” or “pointless.” While 23% felt they made sense in some circumstances, only 12% considered them necessary.
Whether or not paywalls are a good idea, the growing importance of digital in the news brand equation is certainly making the debate relevant. UK consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable accessing news content in the digital realm. According to a March survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), among British internet users, reading or downloading digital news was a common activity, particularly among younger demographics. It was cited by around 70% of the two youngest demographic groups, and by a sizeable majority of those ages 35 to 54.
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Consumers-Still-Opposed-Newspaper-Paywalls/1010377#6pCITWgbhdwQ3ejP.99
With so much news content available for free, it’s perhaps unsurprising that attitudes toward paywalls in the UK remain largely negative. According to a Kantar survey conducted by Lightspeed Research, 80% of UK internet users polled in August 2013 considered newspaper paywalls either “a bad idea” or “pointless.” While 23% felt they made sense in some circumstances, only 12% considered them necessary.
Whether or not paywalls are a good idea, the growing importance of digital in the news brand equation is certainly making the debate relevant. UK consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable accessing news content in the digital realm. According to a March survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), among British internet users, reading or downloading digital news was a common activity, particularly among younger demographics. It was cited by around 70% of the two youngest demographic groups, and by a sizeable majority of those ages 35 to 54.
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Consumers-Still-Opposed-Newspaper-Paywalls/1010377#6pCITWgbhdwQ3ejP.99
Digital
versions of The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers were put behind
paywalls over three years ago—in July 2010. And while their News UK
stable mate, The Sun, also put up a paywall this year, the majority of
UK news media brands continue to operate a free-content model.
With so much news content available for free, it’s perhaps unsurprising that attitudes toward paywalls in the UK remain largely negative. According to a Kantar survey conducted by Lightspeed Research, 80% of UK internet users polled in August 2013 considered newspaper paywalls either “a bad idea” or “pointless.” While 23% felt they made sense in some circumstances, only 12% considered them necessary.
Whether or not paywalls are a good idea, the growing importance of digital in the news brand equation is certainly making the debate relevant. UK consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable accessing news content in the digital realm. According to a March survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), among British internet users, reading or downloading digital news was a common activity, particularly among younger demographics. It was cited by around 70% of the two youngest demographic groups, and by a sizeable majority of those ages 35 to 54.
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Consumers-Still-Opposed-Newspaper-Paywalls/1010377#6pCITWgbhdwQ3ejP.99
With so much news content available for free, it’s perhaps unsurprising that attitudes toward paywalls in the UK remain largely negative. According to a Kantar survey conducted by Lightspeed Research, 80% of UK internet users polled in August 2013 considered newspaper paywalls either “a bad idea” or “pointless.” While 23% felt they made sense in some circumstances, only 12% considered them necessary.
Whether or not paywalls are a good idea, the growing importance of digital in the news brand equation is certainly making the debate relevant. UK consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable accessing news content in the digital realm. According to a March survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), among British internet users, reading or downloading digital news was a common activity, particularly among younger demographics. It was cited by around 70% of the two youngest demographic groups, and by a sizeable majority of those ages 35 to 54.
Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UK-Consumers-Still-Opposed-Newspaper-Paywalls/1010377#6pCITWgbhdwQ3ejP.99
It’s the engagement, stupid: Jim Chisholm says newspapers need to do more to earn attention
Nieman Journalism Lab reporting:
That argument — that the decline of newspapers’ fortunes has roots much deeper than the proliferation of screens in our lives — may go against the flow, but Chisholm, a Scottish newspaper consultant, believes it’s important to acknowledge it if newspapers are going to thrive. He presented his ideas at this year’s WAN-IFRA newspaper congress in Bangkok (which Frédéric Filloux deftly summarized), making a case that online content is, at this point, no replacement for print when it comes to reader engagement — and, therefore, advertising revenue.
But that same data says that Americans often don’t go much further than a newspaper’s homepage and don’t spend much time actually reading its content. Newspapers represented just 1.5 percent of pageviews, 7.9 percent of total visits, and 1.7 percent of the total time that Americans spent online in May, Chisholm says...http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8672091774752856243#editor/target=post;postID=965910540641669012
Newspapers’ declining hold on audience
attention began long before the web came along, the Scottish newspaper
consultant argues, and tablets are one of the best hopes for reclaiming
it.
“There is no statistical evidence anywhere that print circulations
are declining because of the Internet. I’ve said this many times, and
everybody tells me I’m talking complete rubbish,” says Jim Chisholm.
“Circulations in the U.S.A. were declining long before anyone invented
the word ‘WWW’…The cause of decline in analog consumption is more to do
with changes in society than it is to do with the emergence of the
Internet.” That argument — that the decline of newspapers’ fortunes has roots much deeper than the proliferation of screens in our lives — may go against the flow, but Chisholm, a Scottish newspaper consultant, believes it’s important to acknowledge it if newspapers are going to thrive. He presented his ideas at this year’s WAN-IFRA newspaper congress in Bangkok (which Frédéric Filloux deftly summarized), making a case that online content is, at this point, no replacement for print when it comes to reader engagement — and, therefore, advertising revenue.
Shallow engagement
How newspapers are faring online depends on how you look at the numbers, which Chisholm draws from comScore and Nielsen. On one hand, newspapers are among the most popular destinations for Internet users in the United States — 61.5 percent of Americans with an Internet connection visited a newspaper’s website in May, for instance.But that same data says that Americans often don’t go much further than a newspaper’s homepage and don’t spend much time actually reading its content. Newspapers represented just 1.5 percent of pageviews, 7.9 percent of total visits, and 1.7 percent of the total time that Americans spent online in May, Chisholm says...http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8672091774752856243#editor/target=post;postID=965910540641669012
What Newspapers Can Learn From Brands
mediashift reporting:
A few weeks ago, the Financial Times announced it was taking the next steps in its “digital first” strategy, which includes consolidating its print edition, shifting from “reactive reporting” to “news in context,” and altering its production schedule to serve an audience that expects updates throughout the day.
There’s been so much conversation lately about how everyone is a publisher and how much brands are learning from media in creating their own “branded content.” But, as the Financial Times move shows, the inverse is also true. What FT is doing might seem innovative for a newspaper, but it’s the kind of strategy global brands have been using for years: You have to meet your audience. That means creating content for conversation, providing information that’s useful or elicits an emotional response, and crafting a voice. Crafting a voice is a major strategy brands have adopted to get digital content right, and it’s something that traditional media outlets should mimic.
The modern audience has less time and more options for news than ever before. To make a newspaper’s content stand out, it’s essential to provide content that captures attention and sparks the viewer’s imagination. In other words, it’s essential for a newspaper to think like a brand.
The key to engaging the modern audience is to make shareable content. We live in the age of social, and if a story doesn’t elicit an emotional or intellectual response in a reader, it will get passed by. That doesn’t mean every post has to be funny or highbrow, but it does mean that content should have a voice.
Brands, especially the larger ones, have understood this for a long time. Giving a multi-national conglomerate a voice is by no means an easy feat, but it’s one of the most important things that brands are doing to enhance their reputations. Examples of brands with strong voices are GE and IBM, which have crafted their content around innovations in science and technology. Both sponsor general interest science and technology magazines with large followings, as well as Tumblr blogs showcasing their work.
The race to be first in reporting a story is leading to irrelevant news that doesn’t make the audience any smarter, well informed or engaged. People are emotional and pay close attention to things with context and connection. Social currency is more important than ever, and if a story lacks a voice and contextualizing information, it’s more likely to be overlooked and unshared.
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2013/11/what-newspapers-can-learn-from-brands/?utm_source=MediaShift+Daily&utm_campaign=0c43a0b306-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_70e55682fc-0c43a0b306-286200861
A few weeks ago, the Financial Times announced it was taking the next steps in its “digital first” strategy, which includes consolidating its print edition, shifting from “reactive reporting” to “news in context,” and altering its production schedule to serve an audience that expects updates throughout the day.
There’s been so much conversation lately about how everyone is a publisher and how much brands are learning from media in creating their own “branded content.” But, as the Financial Times move shows, the inverse is also true. What FT is doing might seem innovative for a newspaper, but it’s the kind of strategy global brands have been using for years: You have to meet your audience. That means creating content for conversation, providing information that’s useful or elicits an emotional response, and crafting a voice. Crafting a voice is a major strategy brands have adopted to get digital content right, and it’s something that traditional media outlets should mimic.
The modern audience has less time and more options for news than ever before. To make a newspaper’s content stand out, it’s essential to provide content that captures attention and sparks the viewer’s imagination. In other words, it’s essential for a newspaper to think like a brand.
Engagement
Engagement is one of the biggest challenges facing the newspaper industry. The Nieman Journalism Lab reported in June that while 61.5 percent of American Internet users reported visiting a newspaper’s website in May, just 1.7 percent of the total time Americans spent online that month was on a newspaper’s website.The key to engaging the modern audience is to make shareable content. We live in the age of social, and if a story doesn’t elicit an emotional or intellectual response in a reader, it will get passed by. That doesn’t mean every post has to be funny or highbrow, but it does mean that content should have a voice.
Brands, especially the larger ones, have understood this for a long time. Giving a multi-national conglomerate a voice is by no means an easy feat, but it’s one of the most important things that brands are doing to enhance their reputations. Examples of brands with strong voices are GE and IBM, which have crafted their content around innovations in science and technology. Both sponsor general interest science and technology magazines with large followings, as well as Tumblr blogs showcasing their work.
Value-added context
FT’s addition of “value-added context” to its digital first strategy underscores the importance of adding voice to content. Changing from reactive reporting to value-added news — meaning adding analysis and point of view pieces — is smart.The race to be first in reporting a story is leading to irrelevant news that doesn’t make the audience any smarter, well informed or engaged. People are emotional and pay close attention to things with context and connection. Social currency is more important than ever, and if a story lacks a voice and contextualizing information, it’s more likely to be overlooked and unshared.
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2013/11/what-newspapers-can-learn-from-brands/?utm_source=MediaShift+Daily&utm_campaign=0c43a0b306-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_70e55682fc-0c43a0b306-286200861
Brands Missing Out On Audience Development
Marketing Daily reporting:
As powerful as digital publishing exec Jeff Rohrs believes content marketing and social media can be, he kept noticing something odd: Lots of great brand content, but no real plan to make sure the right people found it. “There was a giant hole in all the conversations I was having, and this persistent, old-fashioned idea that ‘if we build it, they will come.’”
His contention is that brands need to do a much better job developing digital distribution strategies, leading him to write Audience: Marketing in the Age of Subscribers, Fans & Followers. Rohrs tells Marketing Daily what he thinks is missing.
Q: So tell us more about this organizational sinkhole.
A: Within companies, everyone's responsible for producing their own stuff, often thinking about it on a campaign or even day-to-day basis. So there is someone making sure stuff gets re-tweeted. And there's often a director of content marketing. But there was no equivalent title of, let's say, “senior director of audience development.” And that means lots of missed opportunities. The assumption is that there was this bigger, engaged audience ready to eat that content up, but then there is no person or team to make that happen. My point is, that should be a core marketing responsibility.
Q: Is there an example of a brand you think is acing audience development?...
Q: Who is doing it badly?
A: I don't like to call brands out by name, but if you look at last year's Super Bowl advertisers, you'll see plenty -- almost none had any kind of call to action in their ads. One car company, for example, paid something like $3.8 million for one spot, advertising a car that wasn't coming out for months. The final frame was just the logo and a Facebook URL. That's a huge leap of faith. They should have done something to encourage people to opt in to some kind of direct relationship: Email us, follow us on Instagram. Something.
Q: So it's a lost opportunity?
A: Yes. If we get people to enter into a permission-based marketing channel, it lowers my cost to reach them and speak to them. That car company missed a tremendous rollout opportunity.
Q: What's another success story?
A: Oreo. So much has been written about “the tweet heard ’round the world” from last year's Super Bowl, as if it's a social story. But it's not. It's an audience story...
As powerful as digital publishing exec Jeff Rohrs believes content marketing and social media can be, he kept noticing something odd: Lots of great brand content, but no real plan to make sure the right people found it. “There was a giant hole in all the conversations I was having, and this persistent, old-fashioned idea that ‘if we build it, they will come.’”
His contention is that brands need to do a much better job developing digital distribution strategies, leading him to write Audience: Marketing in the Age of Subscribers, Fans & Followers. Rohrs tells Marketing Daily what he thinks is missing.
Q: So tell us more about this organizational sinkhole.
A: Within companies, everyone's responsible for producing their own stuff, often thinking about it on a campaign or even day-to-day basis. So there is someone making sure stuff gets re-tweeted. And there's often a director of content marketing. But there was no equivalent title of, let's say, “senior director of audience development.” And that means lots of missed opportunities. The assumption is that there was this bigger, engaged audience ready to eat that content up, but then there is no person or team to make that happen. My point is, that should be a core marketing responsibility.
Q: Is there an example of a brand you think is acing audience development?...
Q: Who is doing it badly?
A: I don't like to call brands out by name, but if you look at last year's Super Bowl advertisers, you'll see plenty -- almost none had any kind of call to action in their ads. One car company, for example, paid something like $3.8 million for one spot, advertising a car that wasn't coming out for months. The final frame was just the logo and a Facebook URL. That's a huge leap of faith. They should have done something to encourage people to opt in to some kind of direct relationship: Email us, follow us on Instagram. Something.
Q: So it's a lost opportunity?
A: Yes. If we get people to enter into a permission-based marketing channel, it lowers my cost to reach them and speak to them. That car company missed a tremendous rollout opportunity.
Q: What's another success story?
A: Oreo. So much has been written about “the tweet heard ’round the world” from last year's Super Bowl, as if it's a social story. But it's not. It's an audience story...
Visual jobs in newsrooms have fallen by nearly half since 2000
Poynter reporting:
Staff jobs for photographers, artists and videographers reported in the American Society of News Editors’ annual census have dropped 43 percent since 2000, Monica Anderson writes.
In the last three years, Anderson notes, jobs in those categories have fallen 18 percent, much faster than copy editors or reporters.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/229302/visual-jobs-in-newsrooms-have-fallen-by-nearly-half-since-2000/
Staff jobs for photographers, artists and videographers reported in the American Society of News Editors’ annual census have dropped 43 percent since 2000, Monica Anderson writes.
By comparison, the number of full-time newspaper reporters and writers dropped by 32%—from 25,593 to 17,422. In the same period, 27% of copy and layout editor and online producer jobs were lost, falling from 10,901 to 7,980.
In the last three years, Anderson notes, jobs in those categories have fallen 18 percent, much faster than copy editors or reporters.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/229302/visual-jobs-in-newsrooms-have-fallen-by-nearly-half-since-2000/
Finnish daily piloting solar-charged e-reader giveaway
journalism.co.uk reporting:
Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat is testing pushing their content to an e-reader that does not require mains charging or batteries. Starting in January, 300 readers will participate in a pilot test programme and receive a free solar-charged device which retails at €40.
The current device has a glass screen but the next generation will be made of a flexible plastic that can be rolled, much in the way as a newspaper can.
The Finnish news publisher is keen to test whether giving away digital paper-like e-readers to subscribers is a cheaper solution than print distribution.
During a meeting organised by Poland's Chamber of Publishers, Janne Kaijärvi, chief media officer of Finland's Leia Media, which makes the device, demonstrated the new generation e-reader. The device, known as ePaper, can be charged by solar or artificial, in-door light.
Presenting the fully functional device, Kaijärvi explained how publishers are searching for new ways of distributing their content. "Within the past six years publishers have lost €51 billion worth in ads. Two global companies own almost 70 per cent of the advertising market in the US and western Europe – Google own 53 per cent and Facebook 16 per cent. The ratio of dollars lost in print advertising to those earned in digital is 16:1," explained Kaijärvi.
"I'm not trying to prove our solution is the best one ever created," Kaijärvi continued. "What we know for sure is that if you can make something more convenient, you can make some money out of that".
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/finnish-daily-piloting-solar-charged-e-reader-giveaway/s2/a554680/
Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat is testing pushing their content to an e-reader that does not require mains charging or batteries. Starting in January, 300 readers will participate in a pilot test programme and receive a free solar-charged device which retails at €40.
The current device has a glass screen but the next generation will be made of a flexible plastic that can be rolled, much in the way as a newspaper can.
The Finnish news publisher is keen to test whether giving away digital paper-like e-readers to subscribers is a cheaper solution than print distribution.
During a meeting organised by Poland's Chamber of Publishers, Janne Kaijärvi, chief media officer of Finland's Leia Media, which makes the device, demonstrated the new generation e-reader. The device, known as ePaper, can be charged by solar or artificial, in-door light.
Presenting the fully functional device, Kaijärvi explained how publishers are searching for new ways of distributing their content. "Within the past six years publishers have lost €51 billion worth in ads. Two global companies own almost 70 per cent of the advertising market in the US and western Europe – Google own 53 per cent and Facebook 16 per cent. The ratio of dollars lost in print advertising to those earned in digital is 16:1," explained Kaijärvi.
"I'm not trying to prove our solution is the best one ever created," Kaijärvi continued. "What we know for sure is that if you can make something more convenient, you can make some money out of that".
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/finnish-daily-piloting-solar-charged-e-reader-giveaway/s2/a554680/
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Sanoma restructure: Is this how consumer media goes digital?
MediaBriefing reporting:
Just two weeks ago we wrote about French publisher Lagardére's plans to offload 10 of its magazine titles as it tries to build a digital future.
Now Finnish publisher Sanoma announced its own wide-ranging plans to close 32 of its 250 magazines and focus on 17 brands which "share the capability to transcend into digital media formats", along with a restructure of the whole business that will also affect its Finish newspaper and TV portfolio.
The move is driven by the firm's stuttering financial performance:
-- Losses: For the first nine months of 2013, Sanoma lost €294.3 million, compared to a profit of €158.6 in 2012.
-- Print ads: Down 20 percent.
-- Revenues: Total revenues down 7.1 percent to €1.7 billion.
CEO Harri-Pekka Kaukonen summed up the core challenge Sanoma faces:
Two magazine culls do not make a trend, but what both Sanoma and Lagardére are doing is the logical response to the collapse of print circulations and ad revenue.
Choosing which brands have a future, and where to invest to build new brands and services, is the central question on the minds of legacy consumer media organisations. There are many more brand culls and restructures to come.
http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/what-would-a-digitally-successful-sanoma-look-like
Just two weeks ago we wrote about French publisher Lagardére's plans to offload 10 of its magazine titles as it tries to build a digital future.
Now Finnish publisher Sanoma announced its own wide-ranging plans to close 32 of its 250 magazines and focus on 17 brands which "share the capability to transcend into digital media formats", along with a restructure of the whole business that will also affect its Finish newspaper and TV portfolio.
The move is driven by the firm's stuttering financial performance:
-- Losses: For the first nine months of 2013, Sanoma lost €294.3 million, compared to a profit of €158.6 in 2012.
-- Print ads: Down 20 percent.
-- Revenues: Total revenues down 7.1 percent to €1.7 billion.
CEO Harri-Pekka Kaukonen summed up the core challenge Sanoma faces:
New technologies are fundamentally changing the behavior of media consumers. Advertisers are following consumers. This implies a rapid increase in advertising in digital channels that enable targeting, measuring and performance-based pricing.
That's a concise description of the problem, but what's Sanoma's solution?......
Two magazine culls do not make a trend, but what both Sanoma and Lagardére are doing is the logical response to the collapse of print circulations and ad revenue.
Choosing which brands have a future, and where to invest to build new brands and services, is the central question on the minds of legacy consumer media organisations. There are many more brand culls and restructures to come.
http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/what-would-a-digitally-successful-sanoma-look-like
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Native advertising: How news sites separate church and state
journalism.co.uk reporting:
Native advertising has been a key trend of 2013, with many publishers keen to benefit from this revenue stream.
Sometimes called sponsored or branded content, it is a form of advertising that moves beyond the advertorial.
"It is content that is created for or provided by a brand or an advertiser that is then surfaced on a publisher's platform," according to Raju Narisetti, senior vice-president and deputy head of strategy at News Corporation.
The Huffington Post, in conjunction with parent company AOL, last month published a report which proposed that native advertising is "sponsored content, which is relevant to the consumer experience, which is not interruptive, and which looks and feels similar to its editorial environment".
Perhaps the easiest way to understand it is by looking at a couple of examples, such as the Guardian's 'what to wear on a date' video, sponsored by John Lewis, with clothes featured in the video from the department store, and BuzzFeed's '20 coolest hybrid animals', created for hybrid car Toyota Prius.
Many publishers see native advertising as a huge opportunity.
"We will participate very aggressively in this space," Narisetti said, referring to News Corp titles the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the company's Australian assets.
"We will go after the revenue, we will go after helping big brands figure out how to do this well, but we will do it with very clear, transparent labelling so there is no confusion in the minds of our audiences," he told us in this podcast on native advertising.
"We are starting to engage big brands and big advertisers with native advertising concepts and ideas, and we are prepared to not only run it but also help them create content," he explained.
Separating church and state
The Wall Street Journal is one of a number of publishers creating content on behalf of brands. But, crucially, it is not a task of newsroom journalists.
"We will never have our journalists write that kind of content," Narisetti said. "There is never any question that a Wall Street Journal newsroom staffer is creating content for a brand."
At the Wall Street Journal paid-for content is created by a "custom publishing arm" within the advertising department. It "has a lot of seasoned former journalists who can produce the kind of Wall Street Journal-level quality content that a brand might want", Narisetti explained...
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/native-advertising-how-news-sites-separate-church-and-state/s2/a554648/
Native advertising has been a key trend of 2013, with many publishers keen to benefit from this revenue stream.
Sometimes called sponsored or branded content, it is a form of advertising that moves beyond the advertorial.
"It is content that is created for or provided by a brand or an advertiser that is then surfaced on a publisher's platform," according to Raju Narisetti, senior vice-president and deputy head of strategy at News Corporation.
The Huffington Post, in conjunction with parent company AOL, last month published a report which proposed that native advertising is "sponsored content, which is relevant to the consumer experience, which is not interruptive, and which looks and feels similar to its editorial environment".
Perhaps the easiest way to understand it is by looking at a couple of examples, such as the Guardian's 'what to wear on a date' video, sponsored by John Lewis, with clothes featured in the video from the department store, and BuzzFeed's '20 coolest hybrid animals', created for hybrid car Toyota Prius.
Many publishers see native advertising as a huge opportunity.
"We will participate very aggressively in this space," Narisetti said, referring to News Corp titles the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the company's Australian assets.
"We will go after the revenue, we will go after helping big brands figure out how to do this well, but we will do it with very clear, transparent labelling so there is no confusion in the minds of our audiences," he told us in this podcast on native advertising.
"We are starting to engage big brands and big advertisers with native advertising concepts and ideas, and we are prepared to not only run it but also help them create content," he explained.
Separating church and state
The Wall Street Journal is one of a number of publishers creating content on behalf of brands. But, crucially, it is not a task of newsroom journalists.
There is never any question that a Wall Street Journal newsroom staffer is creating content for a brandRaju Narisetti, News Corp
"We will never have our journalists write that kind of content," Narisetti said. "There is never any question that a Wall Street Journal newsroom staffer is creating content for a brand."
At the Wall Street Journal paid-for content is created by a "custom publishing arm" within the advertising department. It "has a lot of seasoned former journalists who can produce the kind of Wall Street Journal-level quality content that a brand might want", Narisetti explained...
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/native-advertising-how-news-sites-separate-church-and-state/s2/a554648/
October 24, 2013 The Role of News on Facebook
PEW reporting:
On Facebook, the largest social media platform, news is a common but incidental experience, according to an initiative of Pew Research Center in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Overall, about half of adult Facebook users, 47%, “ever” get news there. That amounts to 30% of the population.
Most U.S. adults do not go to Facebook seeking news out, the nationally representative online survey of 5,173 adults finds. Instead, the vast majority of Facebook news consumers, 78%, get news when they are on Facebook for other reasons. And just 4% say it is the most important way they get news. As one respondent summed it up, “I believe Facebook is a good way to find out news without actually looking for it.”
However, the survey provides evidence that Facebook exposes some people to news who otherwise might not get it. While only 38% of heavy news followers who get news on Facebook say the site is an important way they get news, that figure rises to 47% among those who follow the news less often. “If it wasn’t for Facebook news,” wrote one respondent, “I’d probably never really know what’s going on in the world because I don’t have time to keep up with the news on a bunch of different locations.”
In particular, younger adults, who as a group are less engaged than their elders are with news on other platforms, are as engaged, if not more so, with news on Facebook. Young people (18- to 29– year-olds) account for about a third, 34%, of Facebook news consumers. That far outpaces the 20% that they account for among Facebook users who do not get news on the site.
http://www.journalism.org/2013/10/24/the-role-of-news-on-facebook/
On Facebook, the largest social media platform, news is a common but incidental experience, according to an initiative of Pew Research Center in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Overall, about half of adult Facebook users, 47%, “ever” get news there. That amounts to 30% of the population.
Most U.S. adults do not go to Facebook seeking news out, the nationally representative online survey of 5,173 adults finds. Instead, the vast majority of Facebook news consumers, 78%, get news when they are on Facebook for other reasons. And just 4% say it is the most important way they get news. As one respondent summed it up, “I believe Facebook is a good way to find out news without actually looking for it.”
However, the survey provides evidence that Facebook exposes some people to news who otherwise might not get it. While only 38% of heavy news followers who get news on Facebook say the site is an important way they get news, that figure rises to 47% among those who follow the news less often. “If it wasn’t for Facebook news,” wrote one respondent, “I’d probably never really know what’s going on in the world because I don’t have time to keep up with the news on a bunch of different locations.”
In particular, younger adults, who as a group are less engaged than their elders are with news on other platforms, are as engaged, if not more so, with news on Facebook. Young people (18- to 29– year-olds) account for about a third, 34%, of Facebook news consumers. That far outpaces the 20% that they account for among Facebook users who do not get news on the site.
http://www.journalism.org/2013/10/24/the-role-of-news-on-facebook/
Job 1 for Newspapers: Audience Development
Editor&Publisher reporting:
see http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Job-1-for-Newspapers--Audience-Development
see http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Job-1-for-Newspapers--Audience-Development
While
strategic audience development ought to be the top priority at every
newspaper, efforts toward fulfilling this vital mission are fitful and
far between at many publications. This has got to change, if the
industry intends to sustain its strength. - See more at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Job-1-for-Newspapers--Audience-Development#sthash.CzkMYv2R.dpuf
While
strategic audience development ought to be the top priority at every
newspaper, efforts toward fulfilling this vital mission are fitful and
far between at many publications. This has got to change, if the
industry intends to sustain its strength. - See more at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Job-1-for-Newspapers--Audience-Development#sthash.CzkMYv2R.dpuf
While
strategic audience development ought to be the top priority at every
newspaper, efforts toward fulfilling this vital mission are fitful and
far between at many publications. This has got to change, if the
industry intends to sustain its strength. - See more at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Job-1-for-Newspapers--Audience-Development#sthash.CzkMYv2R.dpuf
The
bad news for newspapers is that a significant majority of the adults in
the typical community don’t subscribe to the paper in either its print
or digital incarnations. But the flip side of this problem is that the
abundant population of non-readers in every community represents a
substantial base of potential consumers for the transformative and
delightful new products that publishers could bring to market – if they
put their minds to it. - See more at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Job-1-for-Newspapers--Audience-Development#sthash.CzkMYv2R.dpuf
While
strategic audience development ought to be the top priority at every
newspaper, efforts toward fulfilling this vital mission are fitful and
far between at many publications. This has got to change, if the
industry intends to sustain its strength. - See more at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Job-1-for-Newspapers--Audience-Development#sthash.CzkMYv2R.dpuf
Are Are Photojournalists A Digital Casualty?
NetNewsCheck reporting:
On May 30, the Sun-Times laid off its entire photography staff of 28, including Pulitzer Prize winner John White, in a move management deemed essential to clear the way for more online video. The story sent shock waves through just about every newsroom in North America and far beyond media circles.
News staffs so expert at asking tough questions for a living now had a new, anxious one to ponder: Is the photojournalism we know as much a relic as the musty old darkroom?
"I think photojournalism is coming to a dead end, at least in the way it was practiced in the late 1970s and mid-’80s,” says Mark Hinojosa, director of interactive media at the Detroit News. As a veteran journalist who rose through the ranks as a photographer, Hinojosa says this realization saddens him. And he’s hanging on in Detroit, at least for now.
“We still have a full photo staff,” he says, “but I could easily see a day when the staff is much smaller and it’s used for big events, and the day-to-day stuff will be handled by reporters. It will be OK, but something will be lost. Why? Because a writer doesn't see the visual potential in a story, and can't always find something that's transformative.”
Look beyond the Midwest — where reports of impending layoffs currently dog photographers and reporters at the Chicago Tribune — and you’ll see much evidence that photojournalism has entered its twilight hours...
http://www.netnewscheck.com/article/30055/are-photojournalists-a-digital-casualty
On May 30, the Sun-Times laid off its entire photography staff of 28, including Pulitzer Prize winner John White, in a move management deemed essential to clear the way for more online video. The story sent shock waves through just about every newsroom in North America and far beyond media circles.
News staffs so expert at asking tough questions for a living now had a new, anxious one to ponder: Is the photojournalism we know as much a relic as the musty old darkroom?
"I think photojournalism is coming to a dead end, at least in the way it was practiced in the late 1970s and mid-’80s,” says Mark Hinojosa, director of interactive media at the Detroit News. As a veteran journalist who rose through the ranks as a photographer, Hinojosa says this realization saddens him. And he’s hanging on in Detroit, at least for now.
“We still have a full photo staff,” he says, “but I could easily see a day when the staff is much smaller and it’s used for big events, and the day-to-day stuff will be handled by reporters. It will be OK, but something will be lost. Why? Because a writer doesn't see the visual potential in a story, and can't always find something that's transformative.”
Look beyond the Midwest — where reports of impending layoffs currently dog photographers and reporters at the Chicago Tribune — and you’ll see much evidence that photojournalism has entered its twilight hours...
http://www.netnewscheck.com/article/30055/are-photojournalists-a-digital-casualty
Few people frequently turn to Twitter for breaking news in the U.S.
Poynter reporting:
Sixteen percent of Twitter users “say they turn to Twitter frequently for breaking news,” a poll by Associated Press and CNBC says. “That said, 44 percent of users do so at least some of the time.” And yet far fewer Americans get news from Twitter (8 percent) than from Facebook (30 percent), separate analysis the Pew Research Center released Monday says.
Forty-five percent of those who use Twitter to get news are 18-29 years old — more than the 30 percent of Twitter users overall who are in that demographic, Pew previously reported. Both organizations found a similar number of Americans use the service — one in five, CNBC-AP finds, 16 percent, Pew says.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/228401/few-people-frequently-turn-to-twitter-for-breaking-news/
Sixteen percent of Twitter users “say they turn to Twitter frequently for breaking news,” a poll by Associated Press and CNBC says. “That said, 44 percent of users do so at least some of the time.” And yet far fewer Americans get news from Twitter (8 percent) than from Facebook (30 percent), separate analysis the Pew Research Center released Monday says.
Forty-five percent of those who use Twitter to get news are 18-29 years old — more than the 30 percent of Twitter users overall who are in that demographic, Pew previously reported. Both organizations found a similar number of Americans use the service — one in five, CNBC-AP finds, 16 percent, Pew says.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/228401/few-people-frequently-turn-to-twitter-for-breaking-news/
FT in Q3: Is this what a sustainable digital news subscription strategy looks like?
the mediabriefing: reporting:
The Financial Times is often seen as one of the first canaries sent down the online news charging mine.
That canary is still very much alive and chirping, but in Pearson's nine-month interim statement FT Group revenues are flat so far in 2013, not normally an encouraging sign for any company.
In 2011 Pearson described digital subscriptions, which are up 24 percent year on year to 387,000, as the "engine of growth" for the group. Yet in 2012 revenues were up just four percent year on year, and it doesn't look like there will be any top line growth in 2013. Should Pearson be worried?
The FT Group's changing revenue profile suggests there shouldn't be too much cause for alarm.
In 2012:
-- 50 percent of FT Group revenues came from digital and services, up from 31 percent in 2008.
-- 61 percent of revenues came from content, up from 48 percent in 2008.
This is a rebalancing away from print and advertising towards digital content sales. And a look at how people are buying the FT shows the primary driver behind that shift...http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/is-this-what-a-sustainable-newspaper-subscription-strategy-looks-like
The Financial Times is often seen as one of the first canaries sent down the online news charging mine.
That canary is still very much alive and chirping, but in Pearson's nine-month interim statement FT Group revenues are flat so far in 2013, not normally an encouraging sign for any company.
In 2011 Pearson described digital subscriptions, which are up 24 percent year on year to 387,000, as the "engine of growth" for the group. Yet in 2012 revenues were up just four percent year on year, and it doesn't look like there will be any top line growth in 2013. Should Pearson be worried?
The FT Group's changing revenue profile suggests there shouldn't be too much cause for alarm.
In 2012:
-- 50 percent of FT Group revenues came from digital and services, up from 31 percent in 2008.
-- 61 percent of revenues came from content, up from 48 percent in 2008.
This is a rebalancing away from print and advertising towards digital content sales. And a look at how people are buying the FT shows the primary driver behind that shift...http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/is-this-what-a-sustainable-newspaper-subscription-strategy-looks-like
Sunday, November 3, 2013
What’s Behind The Washington Post Sale
PEW reporting:
The stunning announcement on Monday of the sale of The Washington
Post to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos caught many off guard. The Post has
been owned by the Graham family for 80 years. But recent years brought
steep revenue and circulation declines and as chief executive Donald
Graham put it in a letter to the staff, “the newspaper business
continued to bring up questions to which we had no answers.” In Bezos,
The Post—and a handful of smaller papers owned by the company—get an
owner who is considered one of the most successful business and
technology entrepreneurs in the country. Bezos is considered to have a
strong understanding of audience needs and the financial wherewithal to
tolerate sluggish revenue numbers, at least for a while. Still, the
challenges are large and not unique to The Post. Pew Research Center’s
Journalism Project, which has been tracking the industry for over a
decade, puts the sale in context.
http://www.journalism.org/2013/08/07/whats-behind-the-washington-post-sale/
http://www.journalism.org/2013/08/07/whats-behind-the-washington-post-sale/
Struggling industry throttles newspaper metrics
Ken Doctor reporting:
Unable to arrest years of declining ad sales and sliding print circulation, two key trade groups representing the newspaper industry have done the next best thing:
They effectively have stopped reporting on the metrics that make it possible to measure – and, therefore, understand and manage – the industry’s ongoing challenges.
Earlier this year, the Newspaper Association of America, an industry-supported trade organization, decided to stop producing the quarterly revenue reports that have charted the advertising slump that has carved aggregate industry revenues from a record $49.4 billion to $22.3 billion in 2012.
As reported here, my analysis shows that ad sales slipped about 5.5% in the first six months of the year. Assuming the industry does no better or worse in the last half of the year, it is on track to deliver approximately $21 billion in ad sales for all of 2013.
The NAA, which publishes sales records dating to 1950 here, promises to release a once-a-year revenue report scheduled to debut in March, 2014.
http://newsosaur.blogspot.fi/2013/10/struggling-industry-throttles-newspaper.html
Unable to arrest years of declining ad sales and sliding print circulation, two key trade groups representing the newspaper industry have done the next best thing:
They effectively have stopped reporting on the metrics that make it possible to measure – and, therefore, understand and manage – the industry’s ongoing challenges.
Earlier this year, the Newspaper Association of America, an industry-supported trade organization, decided to stop producing the quarterly revenue reports that have charted the advertising slump that has carved aggregate industry revenues from a record $49.4 billion to $22.3 billion in 2012.
As reported here, my analysis shows that ad sales slipped about 5.5% in the first six months of the year. Assuming the industry does no better or worse in the last half of the year, it is on track to deliver approximately $21 billion in ad sales for all of 2013.
The NAA, which publishes sales records dating to 1950 here, promises to release a once-a-year revenue report scheduled to debut in March, 2014.
http://newsosaur.blogspot.fi/2013/10/struggling-industry-throttles-newspaper.html
The newsonomics of outrageous confidence (of newspapers)
Ken Doctor reporting:
...
Jeff Bezos toured his new Post before closing the sale and wowed a group of very professional skeptics. Orange County Register president Eric Spitz, part of Aaron Kushner’s ownership group, gave a long interview extolling growth and investment. Then John Henry penned an open letter to the good citizens of Boston and beyond, laying out in fine detail why he bought The Boston Globe. (It’s been a good week for Henry.)
Each of these new owners said a number of intriguing things — sentiments and strategies that we can pick over, puncture, and praise. They all surface elements essential to success. Money? Check. A longer-term view? Check. A respect for the long-time community roles of newspapers? Check. A call for new ideas? Check.
But there’s one other commodity that stands out amid them all — the commodity of confidence. In light of financial downturn of the industry, we could even call it outrageous confidence.
...Confidence in the very basis of their businesses — what news media uniquely do for their communities, local or national — has been shaken so much by revenue loss. Publishers — and their workforces who have sensed the fear, uncertainty, and doubt disabling the spirit of the industry — mistook revenue loss (largely in advertising and largely caused by hurricane forces beyond their control) for brand and community value loss.
...
Jeff Bezos toured his new Post before closing the sale and wowed a group of very professional skeptics. Orange County Register president Eric Spitz, part of Aaron Kushner’s ownership group, gave a long interview extolling growth and investment. Then John Henry penned an open letter to the good citizens of Boston and beyond, laying out in fine detail why he bought The Boston Globe. (It’s been a good week for Henry.)
Each of these new owners said a number of intriguing things — sentiments and strategies that we can pick over, puncture, and praise. They all surface elements essential to success. Money? Check. A longer-term view? Check. A respect for the long-time community roles of newspapers? Check. A call for new ideas? Check.
But there’s one other commodity that stands out amid them all — the commodity of confidence. In light of financial downturn of the industry, we could even call it outrageous confidence.
...Confidence in the very basis of their businesses — what news media uniquely do for their communities, local or national — has been shaken so much by revenue loss. Publishers — and their workforces who have sensed the fear, uncertainty, and doubt disabling the spirit of the industry — mistook revenue loss (largely in advertising and largely caused by hurricane forces beyond their control) for brand and community value loss.
The huge audience is growing again.
Paywalls have proven that readers will pay for digital access.
...
We’re at the beginning of a new age of storytelling...
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/10/the-newsonomics-of-outrageous-confidence/
Thursday, October 31, 2013
The recipe for successful non-profits is the same as for regular news outlets: Diversify
paidContent reporting:
...
The key takeaways from the report cover a number of different aspects of what a non-profit news organization is set up to do, such as providing services that communities need — rather than simply focusing on the bottom line or building an advertising-oriented business, the way a for-profit entity would. But in many ways, the things it suggests successful non-profits do are fundamentally the same things that every media outlet should be doing:
Focus on the market need: The report says successful non-profits have a strategy that “grows out of observing the market in which they operate and identifying a balance between two extremes – coverage that’s so broad it’s hard to build a community around it while so narrow that it creates long-term financial challenges.”
Measure everything: The Knight Foundation suggests that in addition to just tracking traditional metrics like monthly unique visitors, non-profits should “focus on indicators that offer feedback on repeat user engagement [and] combine this data with qualitative narrative accounts on how their reporting affects their target community.”
Diversify your revenue stream: Successful non-profits “strive for diversity in funding,” the report says. They look for ways to decrease the proportion of their funding that comes from foundations, and to raise the amount that comes from their community directly through sponsorship, events and individual donations.”
Go where the audience is: The non-profit organizations worth emulating understand that the way people consume information is changing, the Knight report says — they aren’t just focusing on a homepage on the web, but on new formats such as mobile, building sites that use responsive design and putting a priority on social media.
http://paidcontent.org/2013/10/29/the-recipe-for-successful-non-profits-is-the-same-as-for-regular-news-outlets-diversify/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=2619f3bc0f-c%3Amed+d%3A10-31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dd83065c6-2619f3bc0f-99152541
...
The key takeaways from the report cover a number of different aspects of what a non-profit news organization is set up to do, such as providing services that communities need — rather than simply focusing on the bottom line or building an advertising-oriented business, the way a for-profit entity would. But in many ways, the things it suggests successful non-profits do are fundamentally the same things that every media outlet should be doing:
Focus on the market need: The report says successful non-profits have a strategy that “grows out of observing the market in which they operate and identifying a balance between two extremes – coverage that’s so broad it’s hard to build a community around it while so narrow that it creates long-term financial challenges.”
Measure everything: The Knight Foundation suggests that in addition to just tracking traditional metrics like monthly unique visitors, non-profits should “focus on indicators that offer feedback on repeat user engagement [and] combine this data with qualitative narrative accounts on how their reporting affects their target community.”
Diversify your revenue stream: Successful non-profits “strive for diversity in funding,” the report says. They look for ways to decrease the proportion of their funding that comes from foundations, and to raise the amount that comes from their community directly through sponsorship, events and individual donations.”
Go where the audience is: The non-profit organizations worth emulating understand that the way people consume information is changing, the Knight report says — they aren’t just focusing on a homepage on the web, but on new formats such as mobile, building sites that use responsive design and putting a priority on social media.
http://paidcontent.org/2013/10/29/the-recipe-for-successful-non-profits-is-the-same-as-for-regular-news-outlets-diversify/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=2619f3bc0f-c%3Amed+d%3A10-31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dd83065c6-2619f3bc0f-99152541
Sunday, October 27, 2013
The case for tablet & smartphone optimization
emedia vitals reporting:
In the publishing and media industry, the New World once was defined by the migration of consumers and advertising dollars from print media to the Internet. Now, however, the New World is mobile, or more specifically, media consumed via portable, personal and powerful devices like tablets and smartphones. Our New World is now called “postPC,” as tablet devices have already outsold laptops this year, and tablet sales are expected to eclipse all computer sales in 2015.
...
User experiences when navigating content designed for a larger computer screen on a tablet or smartphone sucks. Yes, a site that is specifically designed for the mobile device they are using is different, but that’s the point. Users vote with their time and their actions.
Data from our platform shows that readers get comfortable with tablet-optimized sites over a short amount of time. In fact, between July and September, our average page view growth across all publishers that we power grew 48%. That is 48% growth in three months after launching an optimized site, proving that readers spend more time and consume more pages of content each month.
...
First, tablet-optimized formats are different, and by their nature may have less ad units per page than currently exist on your desktop pages. This sounds like a good thing for readers (less ads, more content), but a potentially bad thing for publishers (less ads, less money).
Not so. We’ve learned that by restyling and reformatting content for tablet devices, readers consume more page views. A lot more page views. A quick analysis across our publisher platform during the past three months shows an average of 155% growth in page views per month once publishers adopt a tablet-optimized version. So let’s say your website currently gets approximately 250,000 tablet page views per month. The first month your site is optimized for tablet, those page views may grow to 400,000; by month two, you’ve reached 525,000 page views, and in the third month you have 650,000 page views. In a short amount of time, your tablet-only page views are delivering significantly more ad revenue because your users are consuming more content and page views.
http://www.emediavitals.com/content/case-tablet-smartphone-optimization
In the publishing and media industry, the New World once was defined by the migration of consumers and advertising dollars from print media to the Internet. Now, however, the New World is mobile, or more specifically, media consumed via portable, personal and powerful devices like tablets and smartphones. Our New World is now called “postPC,” as tablet devices have already outsold laptops this year, and tablet sales are expected to eclipse all computer sales in 2015.
...
User experiences when navigating content designed for a larger computer screen on a tablet or smartphone sucks. Yes, a site that is specifically designed for the mobile device they are using is different, but that’s the point. Users vote with their time and their actions.
Data from our platform shows that readers get comfortable with tablet-optimized sites over a short amount of time. In fact, between July and September, our average page view growth across all publishers that we power grew 48%. That is 48% growth in three months after launching an optimized site, proving that readers spend more time and consume more pages of content each month.
...
First, tablet-optimized formats are different, and by their nature may have less ad units per page than currently exist on your desktop pages. This sounds like a good thing for readers (less ads, more content), but a potentially bad thing for publishers (less ads, less money).
Not so. We’ve learned that by restyling and reformatting content for tablet devices, readers consume more page views. A lot more page views. A quick analysis across our publisher platform during the past three months shows an average of 155% growth in page views per month once publishers adopt a tablet-optimized version. So let’s say your website currently gets approximately 250,000 tablet page views per month. The first month your site is optimized for tablet, those page views may grow to 400,000; by month two, you’ve reached 525,000 page views, and in the third month you have 650,000 page views. In a short amount of time, your tablet-only page views are delivering significantly more ad revenue because your users are consuming more content and page views.
http://www.emediavitals.com/content/case-tablet-smartphone-optimization
onlinemedia daily reporting:
hanks to continued growth in online advertising, the interactive media sector is expected to see a 33% increase in profitability this year.
That’s according to a new report from Ernst & Young, which expects the broader media and entertainment industry to outperform the major stock market indices for the first time in five years -- due in large part to digital advances.
Among all media and entertainment sectors, interactive media also boasts the highest EBITDA dollar growth rate of 22%, EY reports.
“In emerging markets, increases in advertising, as well as rising incomes and media consumption, have also helped drive revenue and fuel long-term growth, as consumers in mature markets continue to migrate toward digital,” stated John Nendick, global media and entertainment leader at EY.
“Media and entertainment companies are maintaining and growing their businesses primarily by growing their digital revenues and scaling back overhead associated with traditional media,” he added.
...
A review of the 2009-2013 compound annual growth rate shows that in terms of EBITDA dollars, interactive media is the fastest-growing media and entertainment sector at 22%, followed by electronic games (14%); film and television production (11%); cable networks (10%); conglomerates (9%); TV broadcast (9%); satellite television (8%); cable operators (6%); content and information services (2%); and music (1%).
hanks to continued growth in online advertising, the interactive media sector is expected to see a 33% increase in profitability this year.
That’s according to a new report from Ernst & Young, which expects the broader media and entertainment industry to outperform the major stock market indices for the first time in five years -- due in large part to digital advances.
Among all media and entertainment sectors, interactive media also boasts the highest EBITDA dollar growth rate of 22%, EY reports.
“In emerging markets, increases in advertising, as well as rising incomes and media consumption, have also helped drive revenue and fuel long-term growth, as consumers in mature markets continue to migrate toward digital,” stated John Nendick, global media and entertainment leader at EY.
“Media and entertainment companies are maintaining and growing their businesses primarily by growing their digital revenues and scaling back overhead associated with traditional media,” he added.
...
A review of the 2009-2013 compound annual growth rate shows that in terms of EBITDA dollars, interactive media is the fastest-growing media and entertainment sector at 22%, followed by electronic games (14%); film and television production (11%); cable networks (10%); conglomerates (9%); TV broadcast (9%); satellite television (8%); cable operators (6%); content and information services (2%); and music (1%).
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