digiday reporting:
As an experiment, French political publisher Libération has spent the last two months publishing each of its 150 daily articles to Facebook Instant Articles. It turns out, people like reading articles there...
According to Facebook’s analytics, the time spent on articles has increased 33 percent to 4 minutes 40 seconds. Grangier ventures this could be because readers prefer the format of Instant Articles, or because pages load faster so they stick around for longer.
http://digiday.com/publishers/facebook-instant-articles-leads-30-percent-increase-time-spent-liberation/
Showing posts with label digital publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital publishing. Show all posts
Friday, March 25, 2016
Monday, November 2, 2015
Sun website to scrap paywall
theguardian reporting:
Brooks told staff in an email: “I recently shared with you the future priorities for the company and am excited today to tell you more about our plans for the first of these: growing the Sun’s audience. This will mean setting the Sun predominantly free in the digital world from 30 November. By happy coincidence, this is also Cyber Monday, one of the best-performing days of the year for online retail.
Recent months have been filled with experimentation at the Sun. The standalone political site SunNation won plaudits at election time, we increased the number of shareable stories on social media, we entered platform partnerships with Apple News and we will be a major player in Facebook Instant Articles.http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/30/sun-website-to-scrap-paywall
Friday, October 30, 2015
Facebook, Twitter and the death of the link
Fortune reporting:
...Facebook’s “Instant Articles” and Twitter’s new Moments feature seem to be accelerating this phenomenon, for better or worse. The whole point of Facebook’s Instant Articles project, in which it has formed partnerships with publishers like the New York Times, is that the content from those publishers exists completely inside Facebook’s mobile app. It’s consumed there, and shared there—there’s no link to an external site because it’s unnecessary...
So where is the downside? The risk is that since news consumption occurs entirely inside Facebook, the social network becomes thedefault source of news for large numbers of people, and they eventually stop associating that news with the outlet that actually created it. There’s already some evidence that this is happening...
http://fortune.com/2015/10/28/death-of-the-link/
...Facebook’s “Instant Articles” and Twitter’s new Moments feature seem to be accelerating this phenomenon, for better or worse. The whole point of Facebook’s Instant Articles project, in which it has formed partnerships with publishers like the New York Times, is that the content from those publishers exists completely inside Facebook’s mobile app. It’s consumed there, and shared there—there’s no link to an external site because it’s unnecessary...
So where is the downside? The risk is that since news consumption occurs entirely inside Facebook, the social network becomes thedefault source of news for large numbers of people, and they eventually stop associating that news with the outlet that actually created it. There’s already some evidence that this is happening...
http://fortune.com/2015/10/28/death-of-the-link/
What Are They Thinking? Eight Principles for Mathias Dopfner's Transformation of Axel Springer
Newsonomics reporting:
...3. Greatly reduce dependency on print as a source of earnings.
...3. Greatly reduce dependency on print as a source of earnings.
Today, Springer can claim that 72 percent of its earnings now comes from digital businesses. In jettisoning newspaper businesses and investing in digital, the earnings sources have seen quick reversal. Just six years ago, only 13 percent of earnings came from digital businesses. Earnings are still a struggle, though, up only 8 million euro 2014 over 2012.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
The Economist's Robin Raven: "Freemium is the only way to go"
But that in-app purchase model is infinitely preferable, he argues, to that of a hard paywall. We've seen arguments on both sides of this for a while, with the Sun's capitulation in lowering its paywall against Martin Sorrell's 'paywalls are the way to go' argument. So why does Raven believe the freemium model - such as that employed by Espresso with its free articles - is the correct model. Ultimately, he argues, it all comes down to allowing your audience to discover the value in your product and making it a part of their daily habits of their own accord:
http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/the-economist-s-robin-raven-on-why-hard-paywalls-fail-freemium-is-the-only-way-to-go"Freemium, in my opinion, is the only way to go. I fundamentally disagree with [The Times' hard paywall]. I think it's insane. You need to be able to get your content out there and people need to be able to sample it. "What we're trying to do is build habit-forming products. The most engaging apps out there are habit forming products."
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Mathew Ingram on the "vicious circle" of media businesses, advertisers and scale
themediabriefing reporting:
"People don't want something that is about everything.They want sites that are specifically about the things they're interested in. That's a very difficult game to play."
http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/mathew-ingram-on-the-vicious-circle-of-media-businesses-advertisers-and-scale
"People don't want something that is about everything.They want sites that are specifically about the things they're interested in. That's a very difficult game to play."
http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/mathew-ingram-on-the-vicious-circle-of-media-businesses-advertisers-and-scale
Monday, May 4, 2015
The New York Times Will Hit One Million Digital Subscribers Soon. But Does It Matter?
re/code reporting:
...The paper finally went ahead with a paywall in 2011 and turned digital subscriptions into a growing business that generated nearly $170 million last year, up 13.5 percent from the year before. (The number of Times digital subscribers, interestingly, is growing at a rate of about 20 percent a year, which suggests the publisher is also counting free-trial members.)
...The paper finally went ahead with a paywall in 2011 and turned digital subscriptions into a growing business that generated nearly $170 million last year, up 13.5 percent from the year before. (The number of Times digital subscribers, interestingly, is growing at a rate of about 20 percent a year, which suggests the publisher is also counting free-trial members.)
The problem, however, is that despite those gains, the Times’ digital revenues — both circulation and advertising — account for little more than a fifth of the paper’s total sales and won’t in any way come close to making up for its once fat print profits. Even at 1 million paying online readers, that’s a $190 million to $200 million business. Include digital ads in that mix and it’s optimistically a $400 million digital newsroom. Still not enough to make up for print.
Print, of course, is still a billion-dollar machine for the Times, but it is, inevitably, an anachronism. The Times’ average weekday print circulation now stands at 625,951, about half the 1.18 million it garnered in 1994 when the paper of record reached its daily print peak. And it’s only getting smaller.http://recode.net/2015/05/03/the-new-york-times-will-soon-hit-1-million-digital-subscribers-but-does-it-matter/
Print, of course, is still a billion-dollar machine for the Times, but it is, inevitably, an anachronism. The Times’ average weekday print circulation now stands at 625,951, about half the 1.18 million it garnered in 1994 when the paper of record reached its daily print peak. And it’s only getting smaller.http://recode.net/2015/05/03/the-new-york-times-will-soon-hit-1-million-digital-subscribers-but-does-it-matter/
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Google to launch $150 M. partnership with publishers
Ken Doctor eporting:
In a move meant to blunt escalating European Union action against Google’s marketplace dominance, Google will tomorrow announce a $150 million partnership, to be spent over three years, in support of something called the Digital News Initiative (DNI), I’ve learned through several confidential sources.
...At least seven major European publishers have signed on to the initiative. They includeThe Financial Times, The Guardian, Italy’s La Stampa, France’s Les Echoes, Germany’sZeit, Spain’s El Païs and Netherlands’ N.R.C. Organizers consider the program an “open” one, so expect more publishers to join as well. It is a distinctly Eurocentric initiative, with no U.S.-based publishers as initial signatories, though the architects of the initiative expect its fruits to be globally useful for new companies.
In a move meant to blunt escalating European Union action against Google’s marketplace dominance, Google will tomorrow announce a $150 million partnership, to be spent over three years, in support of something called the Digital News Initiative (DNI), I’ve learned through several confidential sources.
...At least seven major European publishers have signed on to the initiative. They includeThe Financial Times, The Guardian, Italy’s La Stampa, France’s Les Echoes, Germany’sZeit, Spain’s El Païs and Netherlands’ N.R.C. Organizers consider the program an “open” one, so expect more publishers to join as well. It is a distinctly Eurocentric initiative, with no U.S.-based publishers as initial signatories, though the architects of the initiative expect its fruits to be globally useful for new companies.
...1) $150 million Google commitment toward news innovation. That’s, of course, the stream that will catch the most attention. The work will focus on product and platform improvement.
2) A “Product Council,” made up of publishers, will give direction to the initiative.
3) Google will also fund Reuters to widen news research in Europe. Expect to see more Europe-centric news research, à la the kind of analytic insights offered by the Pew Research Center in the U.S.
Friday, December 19, 2014
Digital Publishing: To Tweet or Not to Tweet?
Editor&Publisher reporting:
...
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Digital-Publishing--To-Tweet-or-Not-to-Tweet-
...
But to all the editors and reporters reading this column, I’m only going to
say this once—it’s not cool, and actually detrimental to your job, to ignore
Twitter.
According to a now-famous innovation report from the New York Times, the
company has struggled getting all of its journalists to board this “new
media” train and embrace digital change. It specifically mentioned the
importance of Twitter to the digital future of the Times no less than 18
times. Buzzfeed had a little fun with the Times’ staff, taking readers on a
tour of some of the abandoned accounts its staffers launched that have since been abandoned, a “graveyard of egg profiles.”
Nowhere is this disconnect more apparent than in the newsroom’s leader, executive editor Dean Baquet, who joined Twitter back in September 2011, has more than 11,000 followers, yet has only composed a grand total of two tweets.
While most professional journalists see the obvious benefits of Twitter, high-profile holdouts like Baquet have their defenders. After all, Twitter can be an obvious distraction to reporters on deadline, and with so many social networks out there (have you gotten an invite yet from Ello?), is 8-year-old Twitter even that sexy anymore? As Matt McFarland over at the Washington Post noted, Buzzfeed actually gets more traffic from Pinterest than Twitter, and no one is complaining about Baquet’s lack of pinned recipes.
So should it really be a requirement, in today’s digital environment, for reporters and editors to be on Twitter? Yes, according to Steve Buttry, formerly the digital transformation editor for Digital First Media, now Lamar Visiting Scholar at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, Buttry called out Baquet in a blog post, making the case that journalists that choose not to be active on Twitter “choose to remain or fall behind.”
company has struggled getting all of its journalists to board this “new
media” train and embrace digital change. It specifically mentioned the
importance of Twitter to the digital future of the Times no less than 18
times. Buzzfeed had a little fun with the Times’ staff, taking readers on a
tour of some of the abandoned accounts its staffers launched that have since been abandoned, a “graveyard of egg profiles.”
Nowhere is this disconnect more apparent than in the newsroom’s leader, executive editor Dean Baquet, who joined Twitter back in September 2011, has more than 11,000 followers, yet has only composed a grand total of two tweets.
While most professional journalists see the obvious benefits of Twitter, high-profile holdouts like Baquet have their defenders. After all, Twitter can be an obvious distraction to reporters on deadline, and with so many social networks out there (have you gotten an invite yet from Ello?), is 8-year-old Twitter even that sexy anymore? As Matt McFarland over at the Washington Post noted, Buzzfeed actually gets more traffic from Pinterest than Twitter, and no one is complaining about Baquet’s lack of pinned recipes.
So should it really be a requirement, in today’s digital environment, for reporters and editors to be on Twitter? Yes, according to Steve Buttry, formerly the digital transformation editor for Digital First Media, now Lamar Visiting Scholar at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, Buttry called out Baquet in a blog post, making the case that journalists that choose not to be active on Twitter “choose to remain or fall behind.”
But
to all the editors and reporters reading this column, I’m only going to
say this once—it’s not cool, and actually detrimental to your job, to
ignore Twitter.
According to a now-famous innovation report from the New York Times, the
company has struggled getting all of its journalists to board this “new
media” train and embrace digital change. It specifically mentioned the
importance of Twitter to the digital future of the Times no less than 18
times. Buzzfeed had a little fun with the Times’ staff, taking readers
on a tour of some of the abandoned accounts its staffers launched that
have since been abandoned, a “graveyard of egg profiles.”
Nowhere is this disconnect more apparent than in the newsroom’s leader,
executive editor Dean Baquet, who joined Twitter back in September 2011,
has more than 11,000 followers, yet has only composed a grand total of
two tweets.
While most professional journalists see the obvious benefits of Twitter,
high-profile holdouts like Baquet have their defenders. After all,
Twitter can be an obvious distraction to reporters on deadline, and with
so many social networks out there (have you gotten an invite yet from
Ello?), is 8-year-old Twitter even that sexy anymore? As Matt McFarland
over at the Washington Post noted, Buzzfeed actually gets more traffic
from Pinterest than Twitter, and no one is complaining about Baquet’s
lack of pinned recipes.
- See more at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Digital-Publishing--To-Tweet-or-Not-to-Tweet-#sthash.K5MqyV7e.dpuf
But
to all the editors and reporters reading this column, I’m only going to
say this once—it’s not cool, and actually detrimental to your job, to
ignore Twitter.
According to a now-famous innovation report from the New York Times, the
company has struggled getting all of its journalists to board this “new
media” train and embrace digital change. It specifically mentioned the
importance of Twitter to the digital future of the Times no less than 18
times. Buzzfeed had a little fun with the Times’ staff, taking readers
on a tour of some of the abandoned accounts its staffers launched that
have since been abandoned, a “graveyard of egg profiles.”
Nowhere is this disconnect more apparent than in the newsroom’s leader,
executive editor Dean Baquet, who joined Twitter back in September 2011,
has more than 11,000 followers, yet has only composed a grand total of
two tweets.
While most professional journalists see the obvious benefits of Twitter,
high-profile holdouts like Baquet have their defenders. After all,
Twitter can be an obvious distraction to reporters on deadline, and with
so many social networks out there (have you gotten an invite yet from
Ello?), is 8-year-old Twitter even that sexy anymore? As Matt McFarland
over at the Washington Post noted, Buzzfeed actually gets more traffic
from Pinterest than Twitter, and no one is complaining about Baquet’s
lack of pinned recipes.
- See more at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Digital-Publishing--To-Tweet-or-Not-to-Tweet-#sthash.K5MqyV7e.dpuf
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Digital-Publishing--To-Tweet-or-Not-to-Tweet-
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Membership focus helps Times Newspapers make first operating profit since 2001
The MediaBriefing reporting:
News UK subsidiary Times Newspapers, which runs the Times and Sunday Times newspapers, recorded an operating profit of £1.7 million for the financial year ending June 30 2014, as the newspapers steadily grew their digital subscriber bases and shifted more of their readers into long-term membership relationships.
The operating profit is the first for the two newspapers since 2001, and follows losses of £6 million in 2013 and £70 million in 2009, before the newspapers began charging for all online content.
News UK refused to reveal pre-tax profit for the newspapers and that operating figure doesn't mean the newspapers are yet sustainable on their own. At a press event in London, News UK chief marketing officer Chris Duncan said the swing from loss to profit reflected the impact of significant investment in areas such as unified subscription handling and publishing, as well as journalism.
http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/membership-focus-helps-times-newspapers-make-first-profit-since-2001
News UK subsidiary Times Newspapers, which runs the Times and Sunday Times newspapers, recorded an operating profit of £1.7 million for the financial year ending June 30 2014, as the newspapers steadily grew their digital subscriber bases and shifted more of their readers into long-term membership relationships.
The operating profit is the first for the two newspapers since 2001, and follows losses of £6 million in 2013 and £70 million in 2009, before the newspapers began charging for all online content.
News UK refused to reveal pre-tax profit for the newspapers and that operating figure doesn't mean the newspapers are yet sustainable on their own. At a press event in London, News UK chief marketing officer Chris Duncan said the swing from loss to profit reflected the impact of significant investment in areas such as unified subscription handling and publishing, as well as journalism.
http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/membership-focus-helps-times-newspapers-make-first-profit-since-2001
Sunday, November 2, 2014
The New York Times’ financials show the transition to digital accelerating
Ken Doctor reporting:
Call it an acceleration of the digital transition. Those are the words that best describe this morning’s New York Times Co. Q3 financial report and conference call.
Take the month of October — the biggest ad revenue month of the year for the Times.
Digital advertising will be up about 15 percent this month, says Times Co. chief financial officer Jim Follo, but print advertising will be down about 10 percent, with total ad revenue down 5 percent. The delta is widening, though these are not placid waters. Choppy or “volatile,” as CEO Mark Thompson said, repeating that word many times to describe the ups and downs of print ad revenue. “Inexplicable” is another word Thompson used, trying to explain the vagaries of managing a declining, if still valuable, print ad business.
...Overall, the Times reported adjusted operating profit at $40 million, down $5 million a year ago.
Much more important to understand than these bottom line numbers are the ones that illustrate the quickening acceleration to digital.
Look only at the income results of the quarter — an overall 0.8 percent increase in revenues — and you’d miss the drama of that volatility. What seems like a smooth drive is actually quite a bumpy journey. Advertising is moving profoundly (but haphazardly) from print to digital, as are readers. While the Times could count 44,000 new digital subscribers in the quarter, a 20 percent year-over-year increase, it lost 5.2 percent of its daily print readers — and, more worryingly, 3.5 percent of its Sunday print subscribers. The Times already counts more digital subs than print ones, and the divide is widening...
http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/10/ken-doctor-the-new-york-times-financials-show-a-digital-transition-speeding-up/
Call it an acceleration of the digital transition. Those are the words that best describe this morning’s New York Times Co. Q3 financial report and conference call.
Take the month of October — the biggest ad revenue month of the year for the Times.
Digital advertising will be up about 15 percent this month, says Times Co. chief financial officer Jim Follo, but print advertising will be down about 10 percent, with total ad revenue down 5 percent. The delta is widening, though these are not placid waters. Choppy or “volatile,” as CEO Mark Thompson said, repeating that word many times to describe the ups and downs of print ad revenue. “Inexplicable” is another word Thompson used, trying to explain the vagaries of managing a declining, if still valuable, print ad business.
...Overall, the Times reported adjusted operating profit at $40 million, down $5 million a year ago.
Much more important to understand than these bottom line numbers are the ones that illustrate the quickening acceleration to digital.
Look only at the income results of the quarter — an overall 0.8 percent increase in revenues — and you’d miss the drama of that volatility. What seems like a smooth drive is actually quite a bumpy journey. Advertising is moving profoundly (but haphazardly) from print to digital, as are readers. While the Times could count 44,000 new digital subscribers in the quarter, a 20 percent year-over-year increase, it lost 5.2 percent of its daily print readers — and, more worryingly, 3.5 percent of its Sunday print subscribers. The Times already counts more digital subs than print ones, and the divide is widening...
http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/10/ken-doctor-the-new-york-times-financials-show-a-digital-transition-speeding-up/
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Jeff Bezos and the Post Don't Know the Future of Media, But Are Preparing for It Anyway
Mashable reporting:
When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post just more than a year ago, expectations of a digital renaissance for the paper became assumptions. What would one of the most visionary business minds of the Internet age do with something as stodgy and inflexible as a newspaper?
The answer, it turns out, is far less exciting than some had hoped.
There have been no grand redesigns or big-name hires — one of its stars, Ezra Klein, left the paper to start Vox.com. There have been no plans to immediately end the print edition. Instead, during a recent visit to WPNYC in a nondescript office on the west side of Manhattan, the Post gave a look at a relatively unsexy piece of internal software with the distinctly prosaic name PageBuilder.
PageBuilder does what its name implies, allowing journalists to build pages to feature content. Like Storify on steroids, it is built to pull in a wide variety of content and craft it into whatever format is desired — a content management system for the open-source era.
...
Digitally, the Post is competitive. Its August monthly unique visitors are up more than 50% compared to the same time last year to just under 40 million, according to comScore. That beats out rivals like The Los Angeles Times (27.3 million) and the paywalled Wall Street Journal (22.9 million), while gaining on The New York Times (49.9 million).
The growth is encouraging, but the Post is still suffering from the same fate as every other newspaper. Prakash claimed that the company brought in record digital revenue last year, but that has not been able to keep up with print declines. The paper's most recent public earnings report since Bezos bought it, in August 2013, showed an overall dip in revenue and continued losses.
...Innovation has mostly come in the way of new blogs and a breaking news team. Software developers are now embedded within the newsroom to connect the tech and editorial sides. That system has yielded a custom storytelling tool, a new blog focused on photography and The Most, which organizes the top stories online by media outlet.
...Dan Gillmor, a professor at the Arizona State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said that the newspaper model is not fixable. Media companies that survive will need to change into something almost entirely different....
http://mashable.com/2014/10/05/wapo/
When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post just more than a year ago, expectations of a digital renaissance for the paper became assumptions. What would one of the most visionary business minds of the Internet age do with something as stodgy and inflexible as a newspaper?
The answer, it turns out, is far less exciting than some had hoped.
There have been no grand redesigns or big-name hires — one of its stars, Ezra Klein, left the paper to start Vox.com. There have been no plans to immediately end the print edition. Instead, during a recent visit to WPNYC in a nondescript office on the west side of Manhattan, the Post gave a look at a relatively unsexy piece of internal software with the distinctly prosaic name PageBuilder.
PageBuilder does what its name implies, allowing journalists to build pages to feature content. Like Storify on steroids, it is built to pull in a wide variety of content and craft it into whatever format is desired — a content management system for the open-source era.
...
Digitally, the Post is competitive. Its August monthly unique visitors are up more than 50% compared to the same time last year to just under 40 million, according to comScore. That beats out rivals like The Los Angeles Times (27.3 million) and the paywalled Wall Street Journal (22.9 million), while gaining on The New York Times (49.9 million).
The growth is encouraging, but the Post is still suffering from the same fate as every other newspaper. Prakash claimed that the company brought in record digital revenue last year, but that has not been able to keep up with print declines. The paper's most recent public earnings report since Bezos bought it, in August 2013, showed an overall dip in revenue and continued losses.
...Innovation has mostly come in the way of new blogs and a breaking news team. Software developers are now embedded within the newsroom to connect the tech and editorial sides. That system has yielded a custom storytelling tool, a new blog focused on photography and The Most, which organizes the top stories online by media outlet.
...Dan Gillmor, a professor at the Arizona State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said that the newspaper model is not fixable. Media companies that survive will need to change into something almost entirely different....
http://mashable.com/2014/10/05/wapo/
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Online Retail Now Accounts for Nearly Half All U.S. Book Sales
dbw reporting:
Online book retail, including ebooks, accounted for 44% of all spending by consumers on books in the U.S. in 2012, according to a new report from Bowker.
This is up from 39% in 2011, which was the first year when online retail eclipsed physical retail as the No. 1 place U.S. consumers buy books.
The new data also revealed that Amazon increased its lead over other outlets in online book retail in 2012, with ebook sales from Barnes & Noble, the second-leading online outlet, declining as a proportion of overall sales even as ebooks continue to gain popularity nationwide. This bit of data dovetails with marketplace chatter about Barnes & Noble’s declining position among ebook buyers and as a source of revenue for some publishers.
Ebook spending grew in 2012 to an 11% share of the total versus 7% in 2011. While about a quarter of Americans say they read ebooks and many “power buyers” buy huge volumes of them, ebooks typically cost much less than print books, which explains the discrepancy between the number of Americans who read ebooks and the amount spent on them.
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/online-retail-now-accounts-for-nearly-half-all-u-s-book-sales/?et_mid=631491&rid=233619411
Online book retail, including ebooks, accounted for 44% of all spending by consumers on books in the U.S. in 2012, according to a new report from Bowker.
This is up from 39% in 2011, which was the first year when online retail eclipsed physical retail as the No. 1 place U.S. consumers buy books.
The new data also revealed that Amazon increased its lead over other outlets in online book retail in 2012, with ebook sales from Barnes & Noble, the second-leading online outlet, declining as a proportion of overall sales even as ebooks continue to gain popularity nationwide. This bit of data dovetails with marketplace chatter about Barnes & Noble’s declining position among ebook buyers and as a source of revenue for some publishers.
Ebook spending grew in 2012 to an 11% share of the total versus 7% in 2011. While about a quarter of Americans say they read ebooks and many “power buyers” buy huge volumes of them, ebooks typically cost much less than print books, which explains the discrepancy between the number of Americans who read ebooks and the amount spent on them.
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/online-retail-now-accounts-for-nearly-half-all-u-s-book-sales/?et_mid=631491&rid=233619411
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
New York Times CEO calls digital pay model “most successful” decision in years
paidContent reporting:
In a commencement address to business students at Columbia University, New York Times CEO Mark Thompson hailed the company’s digital subscription strategy and dismissed skeptics who say media outlets can’t reinvent themselves.
“[T]he launch of the pay model is the most important and most successful business decision made by The New York Times in many years. We have around 700,000 paid digital subscribers across the company’s products so far and a new nine-figure revenue stream that is still growing.”
Thompson added that media pundits predicted that the Times’ subscription model, which is based on a so-called “metered paywall,” would be a disaster when it launched in 2011. Since then, he noted, it’s become a standard for the rest of the newspaper industry. ”In modern media, you could make the case that the best way forward is to listen carefully to what the industry has to say and then do the exact opposite.”
Thompson also equated disruptions in the news business to what’s happening in other industries, like high tech and car rental, and said that risk-taking is the secret of America’s culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Commencement speeches are, by nature, restricted to this sort of soaring stuff. A skeptic, however, might note that the New York Times‘ digital subscription model has already begun to plateau and that the company is still shedding ad dollars and assets. Likewise, Thompson, who arrived from the BBC only months ago, still has to prove he can run an institution that isn’t supported by mandatory contributions from the public.
But the tone of Thompson’s speech is the right one, and it’s welcome to see the New York Times waving its banner not just in the safe halls of Columbia’s journalism school but among the MBA crowd as well. If you want to read more of what he said, here’s a longer excerpt:...
http://paidcontent.org/2013/05/20/new-york-times-ceo-calls-digital-pay-model-most-successful-decision-in-years/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=f8a1774e1e-c%3Amed+d%3A05-21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dd83065c6-f8a1774e1e-99152541
In a commencement address to business students at Columbia University, New York Times CEO Mark Thompson hailed the company’s digital subscription strategy and dismissed skeptics who say media outlets can’t reinvent themselves.
“[T]he launch of the pay model is the most important and most successful business decision made by The New York Times in many years. We have around 700,000 paid digital subscribers across the company’s products so far and a new nine-figure revenue stream that is still growing.”
Thompson added that media pundits predicted that the Times’ subscription model, which is based on a so-called “metered paywall,” would be a disaster when it launched in 2011. Since then, he noted, it’s become a standard for the rest of the newspaper industry. ”In modern media, you could make the case that the best way forward is to listen carefully to what the industry has to say and then do the exact opposite.”
Thompson also equated disruptions in the news business to what’s happening in other industries, like high tech and car rental, and said that risk-taking is the secret of America’s culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Commencement speeches are, by nature, restricted to this sort of soaring stuff. A skeptic, however, might note that the New York Times‘ digital subscription model has already begun to plateau and that the company is still shedding ad dollars and assets. Likewise, Thompson, who arrived from the BBC only months ago, still has to prove he can run an institution that isn’t supported by mandatory contributions from the public.
But the tone of Thompson’s speech is the right one, and it’s welcome to see the New York Times waving its banner not just in the safe halls of Columbia’s journalism school but among the MBA crowd as well. If you want to read more of what he said, here’s a longer excerpt:...
http://paidcontent.org/2013/05/20/new-york-times-ceo-calls-digital-pay-model-most-successful-decision-in-years/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=f8a1774e1e-c%3Amed+d%3A05-21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dd83065c6-f8a1774e1e-99152541
E-book sales almost doubled in 2012, rising to $3.04 billion
LA Times reporting:
The total revenue generated by e-book sales in the U.S. in 2012 was $3.04 billion, a 44.2% increase over the year before. That gain was announced in the preliminary year-end report released Wednesday by BookStats, a joint statistics project between the Assn. of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group.
In 2012, e-book sales accounted for 20% of trade book sales revenue. Overall, trade book sales rose 6.9%. Trade books are those found in brick-and-mortar bookstores and online retail booksellers.
And the increase in e-book sales did not take a bite out of print books -- at least, not in the aggregate. Print sales were $12 billion in 2012; they were $12 billion in 2011, too.
Hardcover sales rose 1.3% to $5.06 billion. Trade paperbacks edged up 0.04% to $4.96 billion. Figures are not yet available for mass market paperbacks, but their sales are expected to fall. Most industry watchers believe that mass market paperbacks stand the most to lose as the popularity of e-books continues to rise.
Publishing often has a single runway hit that swells its annual numbers; in recent years Harry Potter, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Da Vinci Code" have greatly improved sales. There's no question that in 2012, publishers have the "50 Shades of Grey" books to thank for an improved bottom line.
As would be expected with a rise in e-book sales, online book sales rose 21.3% in 2012.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-ebook-sales-20130515,0,1144088.story
The total revenue generated by e-book sales in the U.S. in 2012 was $3.04 billion, a 44.2% increase over the year before. That gain was announced in the preliminary year-end report released Wednesday by BookStats, a joint statistics project between the Assn. of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group.
In 2012, e-book sales accounted for 20% of trade book sales revenue. Overall, trade book sales rose 6.9%. Trade books are those found in brick-and-mortar bookstores and online retail booksellers.
And the increase in e-book sales did not take a bite out of print books -- at least, not in the aggregate. Print sales were $12 billion in 2012; they were $12 billion in 2011, too.
Hardcover sales rose 1.3% to $5.06 billion. Trade paperbacks edged up 0.04% to $4.96 billion. Figures are not yet available for mass market paperbacks, but their sales are expected to fall. Most industry watchers believe that mass market paperbacks stand the most to lose as the popularity of e-books continues to rise.
Publishing often has a single runway hit that swells its annual numbers; in recent years Harry Potter, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Da Vinci Code" have greatly improved sales. There's no question that in 2012, publishers have the "50 Shades of Grey" books to thank for an improved bottom line.
As would be expected with a rise in e-book sales, online book sales rose 21.3% in 2012.
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-ebook-sales-20130515,0,1144088.story
Monday, May 20, 2013
Responsive Design Aims to Solve the Multiscreen Dilemma
eMarketer reporting:
Device fragmentation is a tenacious problem for content providers and advertisers. The rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets, the growing popularity of internet-connected TVs and the promise of web-enabled everyday devices like watches and eye glasses means digital content will need to be served to an ever-increasing number of screens, according to a new eMarketer report, “Responsive Design: A Solution for Publishers, a Question for Advertisers.”
Responsive web design—a single-URL site configuration that enables content providers to dynamically adjust content to fit the screen of any internet-enabled device—is seen as a way of addressing the challenge of a multiscreen environment.
To understand which screen sizes were most widely used by consumers worldwide, and determine where to begin when thinking about responsive design, app measurement firm Flurry Analytics analyzed the top 200 device models as measured by active users on Flurry’s app platform, which represented more than 80% of all usage. Dissecting the data by operating system showed the vast majority of Android and iOS devices in use on the Flurry platform—and all Window devices—were “medium phones.”
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Responsive-Design-Aims-Solve-Multiscreen-Dilemma/1009904
....
Ad serving systems are not fully ready for responsive sites and neither are marketers. Serving display ads to a fluid content environment requires extra coding and tagging on the publisher’s side. Ad servers are likely to evolve quickly to relieve this burden. However, marketers are wary of the idea of responsive ads for fear a dynamic “one size fits all” ad will fail to take the site user’s context into account. For now, advertisers prefer to stay with fixed ads and publishers are happy to accommodate them.
Device fragmentation is a tenacious problem for content providers and advertisers. The rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets, the growing popularity of internet-connected TVs and the promise of web-enabled everyday devices like watches and eye glasses means digital content will need to be served to an ever-increasing number of screens, according to a new eMarketer report, “Responsive Design: A Solution for Publishers, a Question for Advertisers.”
Responsive web design—a single-URL site configuration that enables content providers to dynamically adjust content to fit the screen of any internet-enabled device—is seen as a way of addressing the challenge of a multiscreen environment.
To understand which screen sizes were most widely used by consumers worldwide, and determine where to begin when thinking about responsive design, app measurement firm Flurry Analytics analyzed the top 200 device models as measured by active users on Flurry’s app platform, which represented more than 80% of all usage. Dissecting the data by operating system showed the vast majority of Android and iOS devices in use on the Flurry platform—and all Window devices—were “medium phones.”
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Responsive-Design-Aims-Solve-Multiscreen-Dilemma/1009904
....
Ad serving systems are not fully ready for responsive sites and neither are marketers. Serving display ads to a fluid content environment requires extra coding and tagging on the publisher’s side. Ad servers are likely to evolve quickly to relieve this burden. However, marketers are wary of the idea of responsive ads for fear a dynamic “one size fits all” ad will fail to take the site user’s context into account. For now, advertisers prefer to stay with fixed ads and publishers are happy to accommodate them.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Digital first isn’t an option for media — it’s the only way forward
gigaom reporting:
Everywhere you look in the traditional media industry, you can see signs of turmoil and disruption: to take just a few recent examples, the New York Times is fighting with its union over cutbacks to benefits, The Guardian is looking at forced layoffs to cut costs, and the Journal Register Co. recently filed for bankruptcy for the second time. And yet, there are still some industry leaders who question whether newspapers and other outlets should be focusing on “digital first,” something that journalism professor Paul Bradshaw argues is a waste of both time and energy, at a time when the industry needs those things the most. He is right — the question isn’t whether digital should be first, it’s whether those who aren’t focusing on “digital first” will even be around to participate in the debate for much longer.
The bankruptcy filing by the Journal Register Co. seems to have sparked a lot of the recent dissent over the issue, if only because the chain of daily and weekly papers had been the poster child for digital initiatives at parent company Digital First Media — including a restructuring of management to focus on the web and innovative projects such as an open “community newsroom.” To some, the financial failure of the chain looks like a failure of the entire digital-first philosophy, despite the fact that Digital First CEO John Paton has explained the Journal-Register’s troubles are based more on legacy costs such as printing contracts and pension obligations for past employees.
http://gigaom.com/2012/10/09/digital-first-isnt-an-option-for-media-its-the-only-way-forward/
Everywhere you look in the traditional media industry, you can see signs of turmoil and disruption: to take just a few recent examples, the New York Times is fighting with its union over cutbacks to benefits, The Guardian is looking at forced layoffs to cut costs, and the Journal Register Co. recently filed for bankruptcy for the second time. And yet, there are still some industry leaders who question whether newspapers and other outlets should be focusing on “digital first,” something that journalism professor Paul Bradshaw argues is a waste of both time and energy, at a time when the industry needs those things the most. He is right — the question isn’t whether digital should be first, it’s whether those who aren’t focusing on “digital first” will even be around to participate in the debate for much longer.
The bankruptcy filing by the Journal Register Co. seems to have sparked a lot of the recent dissent over the issue, if only because the chain of daily and weekly papers had been the poster child for digital initiatives at parent company Digital First Media — including a restructuring of management to focus on the web and innovative projects such as an open “community newsroom.” To some, the financial failure of the chain looks like a failure of the entire digital-first philosophy, despite the fact that Digital First CEO John Paton has explained the Journal-Register’s troubles are based more on legacy costs such as printing contracts and pension obligations for past employees.
To take just one example, Bradshaw notes that industry magazine Editor & Publisher carried an editorial on Monday that questioned whether focusing on digital first is the right road to success, since even the Journal Register Co. couldn’t seem to make it work:
“[F]or all the hype about embracing digital platforms, the constant drum beat of new projects, and the relentless self-promotion, digital first wasn’t enough to keep JRC from sinking back into bankruptcy, leaving other publishers wondering, ‘If digital first won’t work, what will?’”This kind of attitude shows a profound misunderstanding of where the newspaper industry is, and how it needs to move forward. Like virtually every other mainstream paper and magazine publisher — many of whom are likely fighting desperately to stave off a similar filing — the Journal Register’s biggest problem is that while its print business is still producing the lion’s share of its revenue, that figure is shrinking rapidly. And even though most executives in the industry seem to appreciate that digital has to come first, the revenue from that business isn’t picking up the slack. This is the “digital pennies for analog dimes” problem.
http://gigaom.com/2012/10/09/digital-first-isnt-an-option-for-media-its-the-only-way-forward/
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Inside Forbes: The 9 Realities of Building a Sustainable Model for Journalism
Forbes reporting:
...Still, FORBES and the entire media industry face daunting challenges. Digital publishing is perhaps the most disruptive force the media has ever encountered. Anyone can publish anywhere, anytime and attract an audience. Questions loom about the future of print in a tablet world. As downward pressure on CPMs indicate, new kinds of digital ad products are required. Journalists must learn entirely new skills or risk being run over by a competitive force of native digital content creators. News organizations need to develop new labor models (our contributor network is one) that can produce quality content efficiently. Most scary of all, news stalwarts must recognize that brands are publishers, too, and they want the media to provide new solutions for them to reach their customers.
So, what are the requirements for a sustainable model for journalism? Here are my nine:
1. Quality: In the bruising online world, timeliness, accuracy, constant updating, knowledge, relevance and conciseness must be combined with extreme openness. There’s a certain amount of untidiness and confusion to the digital experience, and that’s okay. In the lean-back print universe, craftsmanship, finesse and perfection must prevail. The discipline of print-reporting cycles can be combined with digital audience data to produce highly effective long-form content across all platforms.
2. Authenticity: For the last 50 years, journalistic command-and-control resulted in homogenized products. Today’s sophisticated niche audiences require the expertise and passion of individual voices.
3. Quantity: Voracious news consumers demand slivers of news and information 24 hours a day. Scalable content-creation networks and open-source publishing tools that have been highly customized can drive the timely output of quality content.
4. Accountability: Journalists must “transact,” or engage one-on-one...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lewisdvorkin/2012/04/30/inside-forbes-the-9-realities-of-building-a-sustainable-model-for-journalism/
...Still, FORBES and the entire media industry face daunting challenges. Digital publishing is perhaps the most disruptive force the media has ever encountered. Anyone can publish anywhere, anytime and attract an audience. Questions loom about the future of print in a tablet world. As downward pressure on CPMs indicate, new kinds of digital ad products are required. Journalists must learn entirely new skills or risk being run over by a competitive force of native digital content creators. News organizations need to develop new labor models (our contributor network is one) that can produce quality content efficiently. Most scary of all, news stalwarts must recognize that brands are publishers, too, and they want the media to provide new solutions for them to reach their customers.
So, what are the requirements for a sustainable model for journalism? Here are my nine:
1. Quality: In the bruising online world, timeliness, accuracy, constant updating, knowledge, relevance and conciseness must be combined with extreme openness. There’s a certain amount of untidiness and confusion to the digital experience, and that’s okay. In the lean-back print universe, craftsmanship, finesse and perfection must prevail. The discipline of print-reporting cycles can be combined with digital audience data to produce highly effective long-form content across all platforms.
2. Authenticity: For the last 50 years, journalistic command-and-control resulted in homogenized products. Today’s sophisticated niche audiences require the expertise and passion of individual voices.
3. Quantity: Voracious news consumers demand slivers of news and information 24 hours a day. Scalable content-creation networks and open-source publishing tools that have been highly customized can drive the timely output of quality content.
4. Accountability: Journalists must “transact,” or engage one-on-one...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lewisdvorkin/2012/04/30/inside-forbes-the-9-realities-of-building-a-sustainable-model-for-journalism/
Monday, March 26, 2012
Good practices for iPad ads
Conde Nast and Time Inc, have published recommendations and research results of an optimal ad format in iPads.
Advertisers should design material specially for tablets and avoid repurposing assets from other media. A good iPad ad is a simple, takes advantage of new medium´s functionality, tells a story and offers clear hints anbd instructions of navigation within the ad.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
WSJ Launching German Digital-Only Editions
paidcontent reporting:
WSJ already has a Europe edition plus local language services in China and Japan. But Germany’s place as Europe’s key economy is only increasing.
German media conglomerate Axel Springer in November sold its 75 percent stakes in business news site WallStreet:Online and stock broker WallStreet:Online Capital, plus its 33.3 percent share of business certificate site ZertifikateJournal, to their managers and shareholders, to focus on its other finance portal, Finanzen.net, which it said has higher reach. FT Deutschland is no longer jointly owned by Financial Times.
Thomson Reuters’ Wall Street editor Knut Engelmann is being named German managing editor for both newswires and WallStreetJournal.de. Dow Jones’ German managing director Dr. Matthias Paul ads the role of publisher for the new site.
The service will include both free and subscriber-only content from WSJ and Dow Jones.
http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-wsj-launching-german-digital-only-editions/
Dow Jones (NSDQ: NWS) is building its German-language news wire service in to a full-fledged Wall Street Journal edition for Germany.
Published on web, mobile and tablets, the edition is due to
launch in January and shows what is now likely a strategy for many media
companies - launching in new markets, but not with analogue media.WSJ already has a Europe edition plus local language services in China and Japan. But Germany’s place as Europe’s key economy is only increasing.
German media conglomerate Axel Springer in November sold its 75 percent stakes in business news site WallStreet:Online and stock broker WallStreet:Online Capital, plus its 33.3 percent share of business certificate site ZertifikateJournal, to their managers and shareholders, to focus on its other finance portal, Finanzen.net, which it said has higher reach. FT Deutschland is no longer jointly owned by Financial Times.
Thomson Reuters’ Wall Street editor Knut Engelmann is being named German managing editor for both newswires and WallStreetJournal.de. Dow Jones’ German managing director Dr. Matthias Paul ads the role of publisher for the new site.
The service will include both free and subscriber-only content from WSJ and Dow Jones.
http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-wsj-launching-german-digital-only-editions/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)