The New York Times in September created an 11-person team, some of which are shared, to focus on messaging and push alerts. It is led by Andrew Phelps, who was formerly the Times’ iOS lead and now has the title of product director of messaging and push. Phelps, who oversees a lot of experiments in this area and works with news editors to push out alerts, sees 2016 as a big year for push.“We used to be standing on a hill and shouting messages at people,” he said. Now, by comparison, he said, “There’s a growing number of users who only engage with us when we send a push.”The push notification has great potential for personalization and, in this way, the Times is joining other publishers in thinking beyond the breaking-news alert to how it can customize notifications to people’s interests. At the Times, personalization can take a couple of forms. One is customizing pushes to people based on reading history. If you read a lot of politics stories on the Times, for example, the Times can be reasonably sure its recent magazine profile of Donald Trump might appeal to you.The Times is also testing pushes based on time of day and language...Once, the push notification sent only the top or breaking stories; that approach seems simplistic and dated now. The Times is well aware that when news breaks, people may see the same headline in multiple places. So along with customizing its pushes, it’s trying to make them stand out by adopting the more informal writing style it created for the Apple Watch. “We’re sort of treating push as a new form of storytelling,” Phelps said.http://digiday.com/publishers/inside-new-york-times-new-push-notifications-team/
NYT memo:
...We are reimagining the way we build products to reflect the simple truth that
journalism, audience development and revenue are not at odds but entirely
dependent on one another. This includes continuing to expand on the success of the
last year by empowering more cross-functional teams — with news, product,
design, technology, marketing and advertising working shoulder to shoulder — to
create more cohesive and comprehensive products that meet our customers’ needs
across platforms.
● Over the next few years, the battle is going to be won or lost on smartphones. This
continues to be our biggest area of focus in every part of the organization. But longer
term, we have to build a flexible organization that can respond quickly to future
changes in technology and user behavior.... http://www.nytco.com/wp-content/uploads/Our-Path-Forward.pdf
The Buttry Diary reporting: But, as I read the State of the Media 2015 report by the Pew Research Center, I am struck by the growth in mobile advertising, from $416 million (with an m) in 2009 to $19 billion (with a b) in 2014. In five years, that’s an increase of 4,500 percent, and mobile advertising has surpassed print newspaper advertising, which is just under $17 billion.... ...In this year’s report, the lead is: “Call it a mobile majority.” The report focuses heavily on mobile media and notes that 39 of the 50 leading digital news sites get most of their traffic from mobile devices. And the report tells who’s dominating mobile advertising: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Pandora and Apple combine for 64 percent of mobile display advertising. Not a news organization in the group. https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/whats-the-next-mobile-huge-opportunity-news-media-cant-afford-to-squander/
digiday reporting: The tyranny of the 800-word article must end.
Most newspaper articles fall around 800 words. Oddly enough, that’s the same length of many online news pieces. Delaney, who wrote hundreds of 800-word articles during his 12-plus years at The Wall Street Journal, sees that as a problem, particularly as news goes mobile.
“What people read online, when you look at the data, is shorter stuff that’s focused, creative and social with a really good headline. It doesn’t mean it’s unsubstantial. It just means it’s really clear about what’s interesting and focuses on that. A lot of the 800-word stories have been padded out with the B matter. It’s called B matter because it’s B grade, not A matter, which is the focal point of the story.”
Many journalism practices are antiquated. Like the 800-word article, journalism conventions need updating. Everything from the headline writing process, to using topic-area sections and even reporter beats are relics. Rather than strict beats, for instance, Quartz leans on “obsessions,” a rotating group of focus areas that take deep dives into subjects, such as “the future of finance” and “space business.”
theguardian reporting:
...
The mobile tipping point happened for the BBC earlier this year. It’s
happened for the Guardian, where the mobile traffic accounts for around
60% at weekends.
And the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) reports that more people now
access retail sites via mobile than desktop, by a ratio of 52 to 48.
But what does this trend mean for those involved in digital
publishing? How does it inform the decisions publishers, editors,
journalists and content sellers make? At the Press Gazette’s News on the Move conference earlier this month, five well-known media brands shared some lessons in mobile publishing. 1. Plan for the extended internet day – and week.. 2. Think format
That’s format as in layout and format as in genre. “It’s about making
[the text] scannable, quite modular,” said Nathalie Malinarich, mobile
editor for BBC News 3. Remember, the web still rules
Advertisement
Smartphone and tablet users prefer news websites to news apps. At least that’s what the traffic figures suggest.
At the Guardian, 20% of total page views come from the app while some
40% of page views come from mobile users visiting the website. What does
this mean? It means you should have a robust business case before
embarking on an app project. If you can’t make the case then a
responsive, mobile-friendly website is probably the way to go. At least
in the short term. 4. Use apps to upsell 5. Don’t forget the role of social media 7. It’s the content, stupid
For Alan Hunter, head of digital at The Times and The Sunday Times,
it’s not principally about device or technology – it’s about the quality
of the editorial. “Really great stories are what sell digital products.
All our best hits, best dwell time are on the best stories,” Hunter
said.” “You can’t put lipstick on a pig and hope it’s going to look
good.” http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2014/oct/30/lessons-mobile-publishing-buzzfeed-bbc?CMP=new_1194
While
tablet advertising is usually considered as part of the broader mobile
advertising category, a recent survey points to key differences in
formats and performance.
Medialets,
who operates a mobile ad serving platform, recently compiled data from
campaigns run across its network on both smartphones and tablets from
January to June 2014.
Here are some key findings:
Tablets get only 12% of all ad impressions served on mobile devices.
The average click-through rate on ads (CTR) is 44% higher on tablets than on phones (0.59% vs. 0.41%)
The delta in CTR is even stronger for static ads: They are clicked 53%
more frequently on tablets (0.81%) than on handsets (0.53%)
Interstitials --or full-screen static ads-- are clicked 6 times more on tablets than smartphones.
The three best-performing static ad formats on tablets are:
1) traditional 300x250 medium rectangle
2) full screen ad
3) horizontal “leaderboard” banner (728x90 or 994x90)
For the same number of devices, there are 35% less rich media (i.e.
interactive) and video ads served on tablets than on mobile...
TechCrunch reporting:
U.S. users are now spending the majority of their time consuming digital media within mobile applications, according to a new study
released by comScore this morning. That means mobile apps, including
the number 1 most popular app Facebook, eat up more of our time than
desktop usage or mobile web surfing, accounting for 52% of the time
spent using digital media. Combined with mobile web, mobile usage as a
whole accounts for 60% of time spent, while desktop-based digital media
consumption makes up the remaining 40%.
Apps today are driving the majority of media consumption activity,
the report claims, now accounting for 7 our of every 8 minutes of media
consumption on mobile devices. On smartphones, app activity is even
higher, at 88% usage versus 82% on tablets.
App Users
The report also details several interesting figures related to how
U.S. app users are interacting with these mobile applications, noting
that over one-third today download at least one application per month.
The average smartphone user downloads 3 apps per month.
However, something which may not have been well understood before is
that much of that download activity is concentrated within a small
segment of the smartphone population: the top 7% of smartphone owners
accounting for nearly half of all the download activity in a given month. Those are some serious power users, apparently.
But no matter how often consumers are actively downloading apps, they
certainly are addicted to them. More than half (57%) use apps every
single day, while 26% of tablet owners do. And 79% of smartphone owners
use apps nearly every day, saying they use them at least 26 days per
month, versus 52% for tablet users.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/21/majority-of-digital-media-consumption-now-takes-place-in-mobile-apps/
Picture yourself at a work event. What are you wearing? What are you
talking about? How loud are you talking? If you indulge at all, how much
have you had to drink? Now picture yourself on a weekend trip with a
group of friends.
We won’t go into details, but things look a little different, don’t
they? We all change behaviors based on our environment. Physical
location and surroundings have a lot to do with our mindset, and can
influence how we do just about everything.
Behavior on a mobile phone vs. a desktop computer is no exception.
Your physical location, state of mind and desired outcomes can be
profoundly different depending on which device you are using, yet recent
efforts to adapt desktop sites to mobile often ignore these differences
and simply scale the online experience to a smaller screen. The result
is a degraded end-user experience that may not meet the needs of a
mobile environment, as well as disappointing outcomes for marketers and
consumers.
A Brief Explanation: Responsive vs. Mobile Web
At the most basic level, it’s the difference between having one
website or two. Responsive design allows the layout, scale and
orientation of the desktop site to be adapted to a mobile viewing
experience. The content served up to the user is the same as on a
desktop site, and while they layout is organized to accommodate a
smaller screen, it is important to remember that the integrity of the
desktop site is intended to remain as true to form as possible and any
changes to the desktop site will also affect the mobile site. Responsive
design is concerned only with size and scale, not with the end user’s
device type or presumed environment.
A mobile website is separate and distinct site from the desktop site,
and must be maintained as such. It is designed to cater to the mobile
experience, and makes the assumption that the end user has different
objectives than they would on a desktop site. This means the mobile site
may not offer the full scale of content served up on the desktop
version, and the options presented on the landing page may be refined
accordingly. media reporting:
Picture yourself at a work event. What are you wearing? What are you
talking about? How loud are you talking? If you indulge at all, how much
have you had to drink? Now picture yourself on a weekend trip with a
group of friends.
We won’t go into details, but things look a little different, don’t
they? We all change behaviors based on our environment. Physical
location and surroundings have a lot to do with our mindset, and can
influence how we do just about everything.
Behavior on a mobile phone vs. a desktop computer is no exception.
Your physical location, state of mind and desired outcomes can be
profoundly different depending on which device you are using, yet recent
efforts to adapt desktop sites to mobile often ignore these differences
and simply scale the online experience to a smaller screen. The result
is a degraded end-user experience that may not meet the needs of a
mobile environment, as well as disappointing outcomes for marketers and
consumers.
A Brief Explanation: Responsive vs. Mobile Web
At the most basic level, it’s the difference between having one
website or two. Responsive design allows the layout, scale and
orientation of the desktop site to be adapted to a mobile viewing
experience. The content served up to the user is the same as on a
desktop site, and while they layout is organized to accommodate a
smaller screen, it is important to remember that the integrity of the
desktop site is intended to remain as true to form as possible and any
changes to the desktop site will also affect the mobile site. Responsive
design is concerned only with size and scale, not with the end user’s
device type or presumed environment.
A mobile website is separate and distinct site from the desktop site,
and must be maintained as such. It is designed to cater to the mobile
experience, and makes the assumption that the end user has different
objectives than they would on a desktop site. This means the mobile site
may not offer the full scale of content served up on the desktop
version, and the options presented on the landing page may be refined
accordingly... http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/27/is-responsive-design-killing-mobile/?utm_source=API%27s+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=8e50fcfc40-Need_to_Know_July_28_20147_28_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-8e50fcfc40-31701933
API reporting:
Every print newspaper article goes through a process of reporting,
editing and design to optimize how it appears in print. And most
publishers have gotten comfortable with customization of online stories
for things like SEO and adding additional content or updates.
But content customization for mobile is scant, the participants at
our summit said–even at some of the most advanced publishing outlets.
“Your highly
motivated readers are bound to read content regardless of form. To
reach new, larger audiences, you need to make the content an ideal
mobile experience. ”
Rather than just letting content flow “downstream” unchanged from web
to mobile, publishers to thrive in the new era have to begin delivering
new forms of news tailored to the unique mobile reading experience.
There’s a different screen size (smaller), user interface (swiping
and tapping), and surrounding environment (may be things going on around
them). So stories for mobile could be different. More scannable. More
summarized information. Paragraphs limited in length.
It probably seems a big task — yet another on a long list. And
publishers who see a growing mobile audience for what they already have
may think they’re doing just fine. But as the Boston Globe’s Damon
Kiesow pointed out, your highly motivated readers are bound to read
content regardless of form. To reach new, larger audiences, you need to
make the content an ideal mobile experience. Thus customizing for mobile
is essential for growth.
Many of the organizations represented at our summit, including For
The Win, Circa and Breaking News, are reimagining the “atomic unit” of
mobile news, or the smallest component that can stand alone. Circa breaks news into digestible pieces, consumed one at a time.
Traditionally that unit has been an article. But new mobile
publishers are imagining news chunks as simple as a paragraph, image,
sentence or fact, which can be chained together with others or consumed
by itself.
Circa, a mobile-first news publisher founded in late 2011, has its
journalists build “atoms” of news that can be used in different ways or
repurposed, Editor in Chief Anthony De Rosa explained. Pieces that first
appeared in a live blog can then be used in a full article... http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/white-papers/mobile-news-presentation/
API reporting:
...
The ideas, and in some cases the words themselves, are drawn from the
few dozen participants of our summit. We don’t imply that every summit
participant endorses every idea or view expressed in this white paper,
but collectively they deserve credit for any wisdom you find useful in
the chapters that follow.
The nine concepts are these:
Maybe it’s not quite as big a change as
the rise of the web — but the rise of the smartphone deserves to be in
the conversation. And traditional news companies are falling behind.
There’s lots of great stuff in there as usual, with articles on the
state of journalism education, citizen journalism in Turkey, comics
journalism, epic poetry (!), and more.
I write a column for the print edition of the magazine. Here’s mine from the new issue.
It almost seems unfair — a case of double jeopardy.
Traditional news organizations have spent the past decade responding
to an enormously disruptive piece of technology: the web browser. Their
old monopolies, their old claims on the audience’s attention, were
broken by a platform that let anyone publish — no printing press or
broadcast tower required. The impact on their business models,
particularly at newspapers…well, you know all about that.
But just when news organizations were starting to feel more at home
on the web — just when, in many newsrooms, digital was no longer being
treated as a sad sister to print — along comes another blow-up-the-model
moment: mobile.
It would be an exaggeration to say that the rise of the smartphone is
a shift on par with the rise of the web. But it wouldn’t be that much
of one. Seven years after the iPhone, smartphones have moved from a tool
of the tech elite to a handheld computer in everyone’s pocket. They’re
radically changing how people are getting their news. And I fear that
many news outlets still haven’t wrestled with how big a change they
represent. New data from eMarketer
estimates that, in the United States, about 23 percent of Americans’
total media consumption in 2014 will come on mobile devices. That’s
counting all media formats, including television, radio and print.
Mobile’s already ahead of the total for laptops and desktops, 18
percent. And its share will keep growing as networks get faster and
devices get cheaper.It’s
not uncommon for major news organizations to see 40 percent of their
online audience on mobile devices, most of them smartphones. http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/06/the-mobile-majority-engaging-people-on-smartphones-is-the-next-big-challenge-to-the-news/
Digiday reproting:
Newspapers lag far
behind in the share of time spent on mobile devices. That’s a reality
the Los Angeles Times is hoping to counter when it relaunches its site
early Tuesday morning with mobile users top of mind.
“We know that there are readers who are coming to us increasingly on
mobile,” said Emily Smith, svp of digital for the Times. “We’ve not yet
reached the turning point where they are the majority, but that day will
come soon. So we are absolutely getting ready for that moment. We knew
that we had to rethink the experience on a mobile screen. We also knew
we had to future-proof our platform, because we wanted to be available
on all the new devices, regardless of what screen sites are coming out.”
Latimes.com, which was designed with help from Code & Theory,
will be fully responsive when it goes live after midnight on May 6 —
making it the latest publisher in the industry to pay more than lip
service to being “mobile first.”
With people increasingly coming straight to articles through social
sharing, the Times realized it needed to make article pages the new home
page. So at the end of articles, readers will be given recommendations
for content elsewhere on the site. That’s pretty standard, but readers
also can view that content by just continuing to scroll without going to
a new page, doing away with endless clicking.
A key feature is the visual browse, which lets readers search content
by displaying stories by section in an image-based way. The feature
reflects the visual nature of the way people are consuming news and
content on mobiles and tablets....
Finally, the Times is trying to make it easier for people to share
stories. A third, notable feature is the Sharelines. They’re prewritten
summaries of articles that lie below each article. So if a reader wants
to share an article on Facebook or Twitter, the tweet is written for
them. Not bad — readers can sound intelligent without even reading the
article. http://digiday.com/publishers/l-times-redesigning-mobile-web/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Digiday%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=DD%20Daily_final
...The product is straightforward. It’s mobile-only and, at launch,
iPhone-only. On Android, the Times says, “We’re looking at it.” There’s
no tablet or web access. As mobile usage surges past 50 percent in some
parts of the day and week for the Times and other news companies, NYT
Now aims to exploit the compulsive, near-OCD check-in behavior of 2014
life.
The app will be a standard, standalone iPhone app, not part of
Apple’s Newsstand, where the Times’ core iOS app lives. Download the app
and you get 10 free articles a month — the same way metered access
works on the other Times’ digital products. The price is $2 a week or $8
for four weeks.
...
The journalism is NYT Now’s foundation. Importantly, that journalism
is both self-referential (which is what we’d expect of the proud,
sometimes haughty, news standard of the Times) and breaking new ground —
encompassing a wider world beyond the Times. So readers of NYT Now
will get 30 to 50 Times stories in a given day, with stories appearing
and being replaced throughout the 24-hour cycle. That’s roughly 10 to 15
percent of its total number of articles and blog posts it writes daily.
It’s an editor’s product, put together around the clock by an
editorial staff of 15 to 20 (in addition to another dozen or so on the
business side). Levy is modeling it on the success of New York Today,
the blogging-from-the-five-boroughs NYTimes.com section that he
developed last spring and which has grown in reader (and publisher)
appreciation over time. He and a growing staff have built NYT Now over
nine months, starting with the idea of a “need-to-know” mobile product.
Think of the content in three parts, each borrowed from New York Today:
This year, for the first time ever, the amount of time UK consumers spend
with digital media (desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones) will surpass
the amount of time spent viewing television, according to eMarketer’s
estimates of media consumption among UK adults. The growth of mobile is
key to this shift, as it continues to drive both digital and overall growth of time
spent with all media. In contrast, time spent on desktops and laptops is
plateauing.
The average UK adult will spend more than 8.5 hours each day consuming
media in 2014. Of that total, 3 hours and 41 minutes will be spent online, on
nonvoice mobile activities or with other digital media, eMarketer estimates,
compared with 3 hours and 15 minutes watching television.
The total reflects simultaneous media consumption—for example, if someone
uses a mobile device for 1 hour while watching television, it counts as 1 hour
for each activity. The estimates do not attempt to define “primary” focus
during simultaneous usage. http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-Set-Surpass-TV-Time-Spent-with-Media-UK/1010686/2
Ad Age reporting:
Daily time spent on mobile devices is now outpacing TV in the U.S. for the first time, according a newly-released 2014 AdReaction study from Millward Brown.
Americans now spend 151 minutes per day on smartphones, next to 147
in front of TVs. But the numbers are even greater elsewhere. In China,
consumers spend a whopping 170 minutes a day buried in smartphones,
nearly double their TV watching time.
Users in Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil and Vietnam also spend
more total screen minutes on average than the U.S., predominately on
mobile.
The firm surveyed more than 12,000 mobile users, between the ages of
16 and 44, in 30 different countries, polling consumption of ads over
TVs, laptops, smartphones and tablets. Primary screen
According to the findings, the smartphone has emerged as the primary
screen worldwide, but the firm also found users are watching multiple
screens simultaneously, a global trend that is most-pronounced in China.
The agency classifies simultaneous screen time into two key buckets:
"stacking," when the consumed content is unrelated (mindlessly surfacing
Facebook during a favorite show); and "meshing," when the content
synchs up (searching for an actress in the show).
Across the globe, particularly in Asia, consumers prove much more
willing to "mesh" than they do in the US. Only 30% of American screen
time is spent soaking in related content. The rates in China, Japan,
Indonesia and South Korea are all higher. Sixty percent of Thai users
spend their screen time "meshing." Ads not catching up
Outside the US, consumers are also much more amenable to ads on their
devices. Asian smartphone owners responded far more favorably to ads
than counterparts in the US; and they were more attentive to ads
splashing across their phones...
...Advertisers in the U.S., Ms. McGoldrick added, haven't just fallen short
in spending---they've proven unable to produce consistent, relevant
video content for phones, particularly content that exploits multiscreen
use. "As a result," she said of video advertising in the U.S., "it
feels more like an interruption." http://adage.com/article/digital/millward-brown-study-shows-mobile-outpacing-tv/292183/
API reporting:
Contrary to the conventional wisdom about media consumption dividing
along generational or political lines, a new survey finds that the
nature of the news itself — the topic and speed of the story — largely
determines where people go to learn about events and the path they take
to get there.
The findings also suggest that some long-held beliefs about people
relying on just a few primary sources for news are now obsolete.
“There are
five devices or technologies that majorities of Americans use to get
news in a given week. The average American adult uses four different
devices or technologies for news. ”
In contrast to the idea that one generation tends to rely on print,
another on television and still another the web, the majority of
Americans across generations now combine a mix of sources and
technologies to get their news each week, according to the survey by the
Media Insight Project, an initiative of the American Press Institute
and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Where people go for news, moreover, depends significantly on the
topic of the story — whether it is sports or science, politics or
weather, health or arts — and on the nature of the story — whether it is
a fast-moving event, a slower-moving trend, or an issue that the person
follows passionately.
The data also challenge another popular idea about the digital age,
the notion that with limitless choices people follow only a few subjects
in which they are interested and only from sources with which they
agree — the idea of the so-called “filter bubble.”
There are relatively few differences by generation, party, or
socioeconomic status in the level of interest with which people report
following different topics... http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/personal-news-cycle/?utm_source=API%27s+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=c758cc304c-Need_to_Know_March_18_20143_17_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-c758cc304c-31701933
....Mario GarcÃa,
the renowned publications designer who recently completed his first
digital book, "iPad Design Lab: Storytelling in the Age of the Tablet"
(available from the iBookstore for iPad, as well as on Amazon Kindle and
Google Books). As part of his faculty affiliate work at the Poynter
Institute in the USA, he was part of the key research team for EyeTrack: Tablet, which in 2012 studied how tablet users read and interact with news.
...Can you generalise the challenges facing publishers in satisfying reader demand with their tablet products?
The first challenge is developing a philosophy. While many publishers
are declaring the “digital first” banner as their own, it is a long way
from declaring it to actually doing it. So the challenge is to see
storytelling as the protagonist, then see how stories adapt to the
various platforms. That requires a radical change in thinking in the
newsroom, and, in most cases, an approach that says: In this
organization we write for digital platforms first, then the rest happens
organically. Are you seeing more of a holistic mobile/multimedia strategy, i.e. tablet, mobile, online, print?
Indeed I am. That’s good news. There is near the end of 2013 a
greater acceptance that a multi-platform world, the media quartet, as I
call it, is the way to go. Let the story develop for each platform,
exploring the full potential of each. Let’s not come to the office to
plan a “newspaper” – emphasis on “paper.” It is beginning to happen, for
which I am very happy. It is no longer should we do it, it is HOW can
we do it, and HOW SOON. Exciting times, indeed, for us storytellers. What questions would you advise news publishers here to ask mobile/tablet/system providers who are promoting their solutions?
Ask about the nexus where technology and storytelling meet. Those two are indispensable disciplines that must come together.
Find out what the best technical solution is for you to manage your
content flow in the most expeditious manner. Soak it all up in terms of
how other organizations are doing, but, remember, your newspaper is
different, and you cannot simply take a model you like and apply it to
your situation. You must explore what is possible, then concentrate on
how that would work with your specific publication.
Be ready for change: embrace it, accept it and be ready to implement
functions that are based on a rethinking of what you do and how you do
it
Ken Doctor reporting: The good news is that you only have to worry about one tech trend in 2014. But it’s a doozy. The
trend is the dramatic shift to mobile computing, a communications
revolution rivaling the arrival of the Internet itself. The fast-moving
swing to mobile from desktop computing is changing everything from
interpersonal communications to news consumption to commerce.
For
newspapers and local broadcasters seeking to recapture some of the
audience, revenues and relevance that they lost in the rather inelegant
way they stumbled into Internet publishing in the 1990s, the shift to
mobile computing represents a rare do-over.
Because the mobile universe is largely a work in progress, there is time
for legacy media companies to create transformational products to
delight consumers and attract a host of advertising, subscription and
transactional revenues. Local media companies have two advantages as they mobilize for mobile: 1.
They are unrivaled in the local power of their brands, their
content-creation capabilities, their ad sales staffs and their ability
to market new products through their existing media. 2. Owing to
their largely inept responses to the initial emergence of the Internet,
publishers and broadcasters know the pain of blundering into a new
business paradigm without a deep understanding of the dynamics of the
marketplace or a thoughtful strategic plan for capitalizing on
opportunities and defending against threats.
Ken Doctor reporting:
Our 2014 stage is set, and oh what a marvelous assortment of characters
will be walking across it. Many of these characters — the Bezoses,
Henrys, Kushners, Omidyars, and Buffetts — are new non-newsies thrusting
themselves into the news world, unexpectedly and in short order. The
competition they face is unprecedented, as many media — news and
entertainment — converge on the same models of digital advertising and
revenue from readers, viewers, and listeners. There’s only so much money
to go around, and the losers here are likely to outnumber the winners.
...
Braveheart meets newsies
The future is staring down the news industry, and the business
doesn’t have an eternity of blinks left. Best practice strategies and
their execution — the core of what I cover — are the only way forward,
but this year has surfaced the intangible of what I’ve called “outrageous confidence.”
Jeff Bezos’ buying of the Post (and the Grahams’ selling) startled
people in the press worldwide and crystallized the sense that a new
generation of owners may seem a real future in the news business. In
2013, all the new owners — Buffett and his growing BH Media, John Henry
and his Globe, Bezos and his Post — have been consumed with
getting-to-know-events and rearranging the furniture. The test for 2014: Will these owners beat their
chests, open their wallets, and most importantly fund and support new
products, new kinds of customer engagement and new thinking not invented
here in Newspaperland? Will they not settle for incremental small
experiments but, while staying within journalistic values, make some big
new bets?
The Last Man Standing theory of local media
Here’s our most Darwinian theme. The theory: As first newspaper print
and then local broadcast advertising continue to winnow down, there
just won’t be enough left to support the number of local media news
outlets we have today. Digital advertising and even TV paywalls
could help with funding. If you want to be running a local newsroom of
significant size in 2020, be prepared to be one of only two or three
that may then exist. It’s a only-the-paranoid way of looking at the Blade Runner news future, but it’s also, unfortunately, a logical extrapolation of the last half-decade. ....The test for 2014: As we witness newspapers trying
to do video, TV stations trying to write stories, and public radio
aspiring to be text/audio/video producers, who will get it right first?
Don’t expect the definitive “right” within a year, but 2014 is a pivotal
year to get legs up on the competition.
The back pages
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.
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://www.niemanlab.org/2013/12/the-newsonomics-of-how-the-news-industry-will-be-tested-in-2014/
The assumption that a small screen—like that of a smartphone—might be
more typically used for viewing short, snackable video clips rather than long-
form content seems simple. But research suggests full-length movies and TV
shows come close to news clips and previews in popularity among
smartphones video viewers.
According to research from Digitalsmiths, just over 42% of internet users in
North America watched news video content on their smartphones, and more
than 36% watched previews for TV shows or movies.
That compared with 30.9% of respondents who said they watched full-length
movies on their phones, and 27% who watched TV show reruns.
Most respondents did not have any special subscription service to watch digital
video content, but among those that did, Netflix was most popular, followed
by Amazon Prime. http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Long-Form-Video-Content-Rivals-Short-Even-on-Smartphones/1010492
The
assumption that a small screen—like that of a smartphone—might be more
typically used for viewing short, snackable video clips rather than
long-form content seems simple. But research suggests full-length movies
and TV shows come close to news clips and previews in popularity among
smartphones video viewers.
According to research from Digitalsmiths,
just over 42% of internet users in North America watched news video
content on their smartphones, and more than 36% watched previews for TV
shows or movies.
That compared with 30.9% of respondents who said they watched
full-length movies on their phones, and 27% who watched TV show reruns.
Most respondents did not have any special subscription service to
watch digital video content, but among those that did, Netflix was most
popular, followed by Amazon Prime
The
assumption that a small screen—like that of a smartphone—might be more
typically used for viewing short, snackable video clips rather than
long-form content seems simple. But research suggests full-length movies
and TV shows come close to news clips and previews in popularity among
smartphones video viewers.
According to research from Digitalsmiths,
just over 42% of internet users in North America watched news video
content on their smartphones, and more than 36% watched previews for TV
shows or movies.
That compared with 30.9% of respondents who said they watched
full-length movies on their phones, and 27% who watched TV show reruns.
Most respondents did not have any special subscription service to
watch digital video content, but among those that did, Netflix was most
popular, followed by Amazon Prime
The
assumption that a small screen—like that of a smartphone—might be more
typically used for viewing short, snackable video clips rather than
long-form content seems simple. But research suggests full-length movies
and TV shows come close to news clips and previews in popularity among
smartphones video viewers.
According to research from Digitalsmiths,
just over 42% of internet users in North America watched news video
content on their smartphones, and more than 36% watched previews for TV
shows or movies.
That compared with 30.9% of respondents who said they watched
full-length movies on their phones, and 27% who watched TV show reruns.
Most respondents did not have any special subscription service to
watch digital video content, but among those that did, Netflix was most
popular, followed by Amazon Prime
New data from eMarketer
estimates that, in the United States, about 23 percent of Americans’
total media consumption in 2014 will come on mobile devices. That’s
counting all media formats, including television, radio and print.
Mobile’s already ahead of the total for laptops and desktops, 18
percent. And its share will keep growing as networks get faster and
devices get cheaper.It’s
not uncommon for major news organizations to see 40 percent of their
online audience on mobile devices, most of them smartphones.
