Publisher growth tactics for election season | WEBINAR
Our series of opinion columns from our contributors try to provide objective perspectives on what can be done to improve existing new media and technologies, through their practical experience and not hypotheticals.
Follow our columnists as we continually grow our contributor network.
According to the American economist Thomas Sowell; “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it.” Once a unique proprietary product or service becomes commoditized it loses its scarcity in an over competing market-place and its distinct advantages become interchangeable with the products […]
Much as robots have transformed entire swaths of the manufacturing economy, artificial intelligence and automation are now changing information work, letting humans offload cognitive labor to computers. In journalism, for instance, data mining systems alert reporters to potential news stories, while newsbots offer new ways for audiences to explore information. Automated writing systems generate financial, […]
Open Access (OA) publishing has a long history, going back to the early 1990s, and was born with the explicit intention of improving access to scholarly literature. The internet has played a pivotal role in garnering support for free and reusable research publications, as well as stronger and more democratic peer-review systems — ones are not bogged […]
A lot of businesses and individuals want to create a podcast, and see the benefit of podcasting. However, some find difficulty measuring the success of a podcast. When we conducted a user survey, the results showed that a lot of businesspeople shared the hesitation thatpodcasting is a lot of work for an unknown return. When […]
Have you ever posted something on social media and then later checked to see how many “likes” you received? Have you ever clicked on a notification pushed to your smartphone from a social media platform? And do you feel a slight psychological rush before you check your social feed? You are not alone and there […]
Do millennials read online news? Various researchers have tried to ascertain exactly how much news millennials consume and compare the findings with this generation’s parents. It’s not a problem with a neat answer and these studies have yielded very different results. That said, one thing the majority of these pieces of research agree on is […]
Influencers (aka brand ambassadors) are increasingly becoming go-to channels of an organization’s digital, marketing, and communication strategy. Recently, both micro-influencers (smaller number of followers, but highly-engaged influencers) and celebrities descended upon the Coachella Music Festival, attended by more than 250,000 music fans, to push products, services, and experiences. Wired shared an article about this “sponcon,” […]
A subscription video streaming service that incorporates blockchain ledger accounting can open up a potentially huge, untapped market. The key is to persuade content owners to accept and trust a revenue-sharing model based on actual usage. Solving this problem would lead to massive growth in the number of successful video channels and total video streaming […]
“People will see as well as hear around the world — Pocket-sized radio instruments will enable individuals to communicate with anyone anywhere. Newspapers, magazines, mail and messages will be sent through the air at lightning speed …” This quote accurately describes the way we communicate and access content today, on a platform like Snapchat. But, surprisingly […]
For publishers and newsrooms, finding an answer to the following question is quite challenging: how to stay trustworthy, respect your readers and preserve the integrity, yet manage to earn enough money to keep the business afloat? Monetizing content isn’t easy, but there are three popular business models out there: Native advertising Subscriptions Memberships and donations. […]
Changes in media consumption and distribution have significantly influenced those who write stories for a living. Because of constant financial struggles that most news organizations are facing and a growing need for branded content – a lot of people with journalistic background and formal education in similar fields are looking for alternative ways to expand […]
In addition to finding a sustainable business model, today’s publishers operating in the digital arena are struggling with another challenge: properly measuring their content performance and truly understanding the behavior of their audience. This is a real issue for all sorts of publications, regardless of whether they’re advertising-funded or part of the new breed operating […]
Conversion, when readers make the leap from being casual consumers of content to paying customers, is a hot topic. It’s easy to see why. A subscription model offers hope to a struggling publishing industry – dangling a potential for growth that doesn’t rely on diminishing advertising revenue. At first glance, the figures may look unconvincing, […]
Richard Tofel, ProPublica’s president and founding general manager, likes to say the U.S. nonprofit news site was “born on third base.” Indeed, when the Pulitzer-winning outlet launched in 2008, ProPublica had US$10 million in its coffers from Herb and Marion Sandler. The wealthy mortgage bankers gave it a flying start in a sector that remains […]
When publishers get site visitors’ email addresses, they get a direct line of communication to reach and engage their audience indefinitely. That’s why growing an email audience is critical for building the direct relationships necessary to combat diminished platform reach and declining ad revenue. To effectively grow direct audiences, publishers must implement email capture strategies […]
Today’s topic is the evolution of newsroom analytics. Now, it’s not that any of the following is particularly complicated, but since these days our attention is being pulled in multiple directions, let’s start with an analogy. Think about your car. Odds are that you bought it, and that you didn’t build it (but if you […]
