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Flipboard, Zite, Pulse, and their peers are giving news companies a second chance at dealing with the rise of aggregators. Will they come out of this round any better than the last?. What are we to think when the aggregators start getting aggregated?... ...It’s absolutely clear why companies are (over-)spending on mobile aggregator plays. Mobile is the greenest field around. We — news consumers — are flocking there. The speed of our migration is breathtaking. About a third of all traffic to news sites now comes from mobile, up from just 25 percent a year ago. Tablet usage, as early adopters are joined by legions of others, keeps growing, and smartphones (which just officially passed dumb phones) are markedly increasing news audience consumption worldwide. (The New York Times debuted a new mobile site yesterday, with the promise of more mobile movement to come.) The common belief: Mobile traffic will exceed web traffic within two to three years. But mobile monetization still gives everyone fits. Match up the 33 percent usage number for news publishers against ad monetization that amounts to no more than 10 percent of their overall digital advertising; for most, it’s considerably less than that....
Social reader app Flipboard has already gathered a substantial base of more than 50-million happy flipping users, who can subscribe to read beautiful magazines constructed from social media updates and RSS feeds. But it’s not finished with the community just yet: its app experience has now become even more personalised with the addition of new features which allow its users to make their own custom magazines. Yep. If you’re bored with the seemingly endless Flipboard-curated categories covering everything from DIY to news, tech, travel and sport, you can now create your own magazine from whichever social media and online sources you wish. In a bid to make everyone an editor as well as a reader, the new version (which hit Apple’s App Store today) has introduced a new ‘+’ button which allows users to quickly add a video, article, photo or audio clip to their own magazines. Unfortunately, it just extends to individual posts at this stage, not entire feeds. Capitalising on niche interests, these magazines can be set as public or private, and shared, subscribed to and commented on by other users. Flipboard is also helping to promote the shift to user-curated content by highlighting interesting new user-curated magazines through a new ‘By Our Readers’ section in its content discovery section....
One of the first things that crops up in conversation these days is the language of digital. The word content is over-used by marketers and publishers. The term does a disservice to the creative process behind it. I find it quite hard to think of stories as content – it’s so far removed from what it takes to do. In the digital age, journalism is still – just – clinging on by its fingernails and using the catch-all moniker of content is not helping its standing. Content covers all players, from finely honed pieces by professional journalists and commentators, to rants by amateurs. However, just because everyone now has access to a publishing platform online, doesn’t meant quality editorial is a dying art, nor does it mean that those producing quality editorial should ignore the changes happening in the publishing world. On a site like xoJane – to which I contributed to for a short stint – you’re trying to connect with people. You’re no longer handing down stone tablets for them to read. I think that’s a very important – and good – part of what’s happened to communication....
Ebooks have become a high priority for both consumers and the authors of the latest publications. Authors, publishing houses, and consumers alike are all beginning to choose the digital copy ... ... Many of these publishers are getting started with a number of controversial titles to draw attention to themselves. Though they may not be able to draw the big name authors, quite yet, these small mcommerce companies are including controversial titles among their offerings in order to help to help to build recognition. For instance, one of the latest ebook launches that was meant to attract attention includes one written about Anne Hathaway, the actress, and how her popularity has generated considerable “hatred”. This was released by Entertainment Concepts Press. Many of these publishers, including the one mentioned in the above example, are focusing exclusively on mcommerce. These books will not be published on paper, but will instead be sold over mcommerce as ebooks that can be read on ereaders, tablets, and even the occasional smartphone or laptop screen. All of the major bookstores that sell online are jumping on the digital bandwagon and have built up an extensive list of downloadable offerings. This is especially popular for the bookstores that have their own ereaders and tablets to sell, as well. According to Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, when discussing the topic of ebooks over mcommerce, “We’re now seeing the transition we’ve been expecting.” This was a statement that was made in late December 2012. He added that “After five years, ebooks is a multi-billion dollar category for us and growing fast — up approximately 70 percent last year. In contrast, our physical book sales experienced the lowest December growth rate in our 17 years as a book seller, up just 5 percent.”...
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A bit more than four years after its launch (and six years after the launch of its smaller predecessor Silicon Alley Insider), BI has become one of the boldest business news sites in the world. Its coverage base has expanded from tech and Wall Street to areas such as politics, retail, advertising, sports, science, and military and defense. It boasts roughly 100 staffers and 25 million monthly unique visitors (though Compete.com pegs uniques at 3.8 million last October). Amid jabs at its editorial and aggregation practices, it is regularly held up as a digital news success story -- with hopes its profits will match its web hits in the years to come. As 24/7 Wall St. shared last summer, "Operators of traditional sites are left to wonder if they have to copy some of BI's editorial tactics and give up decades-old values or be trampled by BI as it scrambles to increase its audience and expand into new operations ... BI has given readers what few sites do -- almost no reason to go elsewhere to get information." During the recent Spring National College Media Convention staged by the College Media Association (CMA), Weisenthal and Carlson, two of BI's chief operators, shared advice with student attendees about web writing, audience building, social media mechanics, and a few old-school journalism fundamentals.... Below is a top 10 sampling of their tips and perspectives....
My novel shot to the top of the site's bestseller list last summer. You won't believe how little I got paid... This past summer, my novel, “Broken Piano for President,” shot to the top of the best-seller lists for a week. After Jack Daniel’s sent me a ridiculously polite cease and desist letter, the story went viral and was featured in places like Forbes, Time magazine and NPR’s Weekend Edition. The New Yorker wrote one whole, entire, punctuated-and-everything sentence about me! My book was the No. 6 bestselling title in America for a while, right behind all the different “50 Shades of Grey” and “Gone Girl.” It was selling more copies than “Hunger Games” and “Bossypants.” So, I can sort of see why people thought I was going to start wearing monogrammed silk pajamas and smoking a pipe. But the truth is, there’s a reason most well-known writers still teach English. There’s a reason most authors drive dented cars. There’s a reason most writers have bad teeth. It’s not because we’ve chosen a life of poverty. It’s that poverty has chosen our profession. Even when there’s money in writing, there’s not much money....
Des Moines-based Meredith, best known for Better Homes and Gardens, has discovered the secret to keeping magazines profitable... Meredith has profited from a few key strategies. They are experts at repurposing their content across multiple platforms (magazines, books, websites, mobile devices, tablets, etc.) and aggressively look beyond advertising and circulation for revenue. In print, they stay as far away from the news as possible. They are particularly successful at licensing their magazine titles’ names to major national businesses selling branded products; they also run their own marketing agency. Meredith hasn’t been immune to the forces battering the industry. But over the past decade, by strategically tweaking their portfolio, they’ve managed to maintain steady profits and reliable margins year after year in spite of the turbulence. (Lacy declined to comment.) In February, Meredith published one of its signature editorial products—a “bookazine” called Chicken Dinners. It was flush with ads, co-branded under the Better Homes and Gardens imprimatur, and sold with no expiration date. In theory, it could live on a newsstand—or a coffee table or a kitchen counter—for many months. “Chicken Dinners is Chicken Dinners whether you buy it in May, June, or July,” says Samir Husni, the director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi. Some 88 years after Harold Ross launched The New Yorker with the pitch that it was “not edited for the old lady in Dubuque,” Iowa is turning into a surprising seat of power....
Britta Reque-Dragicevic: "‘The Numinous Place’ is the world’s first truly multidimensional work of fiction – technology and creativity merge harmoniously to create a uniquely experiential new medium" ... [I enjoyed this look at Transmedia storytelling. It provided some valuable insight and reflections on innovation and technology in stories. ~ Jeff]
Via The Digital Rocking Chair
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