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Monday, October 23, 2017
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Maybe the future of American news publishing is…Europe? (and other bleak ad-related scenarios)“How do we produce business models which will support durable, robust journalism? Or do we just give up on the idea that advertising is the right model?” By Laura Hazard Owen. |
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Atlas Obscura is using virtual reality to transport readers to the world’s distant, exotic locationsFrom VR to AR, emerging mobile technology is going to have a significant impact on how the site engages with its readers in the real world. By Ricardo Bilton. |
“Exceedingly generous”: Google will split revenue with publishers who use its new subscription tools
What We’re Reading
Medium / René Pfitzner
How NZZ is using data science to develop better personalized news products →
“Contrary to many other personalization efforts in e-commerce or advertisement, our aim at NZZ is not to provide recommendations that are optimized to increase click rates. Rather we have been looking into engineering a personal news stream that upholds journalistic standards. A news stream that can be best defined as a personal news companion.”
New York Times / Brendan Nyhan
Why the factchecking at Facebook needs to be checked →
“Facebook's partnership with fact checkers may be most effective in providing information to the platform's news feed algorithm, which allows the company to reduce the prominence of articles that fact checkers have rated as false or misleading.”
Medium / Filip Struhárik
In several countries, Facebook is testing putting posts by pages into a separate ‘Explore Feed’ section →
In Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Bolivia, Guatemala and Cambodia, Facebook appears to be conducting a test in which all posts by pages are moved from the main News Feed to a separate section, “Explore Feed” (only friends’ posts and ads show up in the main News Feed). This is just a regional test, according to a Facebook spokesperson, who didn’t say when the test would conclude.
The Verge / Shannon Liao
BBC will use machine learning to cater to what audiences want to watch →
“Through a five-year initiative, the Data Science Research partnership intends to create ‘a more personal BBC’ that can entertain in new ways. Researchers will analyze user data and apply algorithms to get marketing and media insights about audiences' preferences. The details are vague for now, but the team says it plans to use machine learning on its own digital and traditional broadcasting content to gain new insights.”
The New York Times / Sydney Ember
At BuzzFeed, a pivot to movies and television? →
“Matthew Henick’s team of 42 work to develop BuzzFeed articles, lists and videos into movies and television series. Their mission is to help diversify BuzzFeed's revenue stream: Executives expect that partnerships with production studios may bring in a third of the company's revenue in the coming years.”
The New Yorker / William D. Cohan
‘Sometimes deep pockets are not enough to save a local newspaper’ →
In the three years that Alice Rogoff owned the Alaska Dispatch News, which filed for bankruptcy protection in August and resold for $1 million last month, its value declined 97 percent: “Creating indispensable journalism — whether at the local or national level — is not without cost. It does not want to be free. If people aren't willing to pay for it, like they pay for the Internet or cell-phone service, then it will surely disappear, sometimes right before your eyes.”
Politico / Jason Schwartz
Shunning Trump, the millennial generation does what it once resisted: pay for national legacy news publications →
Even The Wall Street Journal — not a paper usually known for being left around dorm rooms — said that it has doubled its student subscribers in the last year. And a spokesperson for the famously staid Economist reported, ‘We are seeing that the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups have been key drivers of new subscriptions.’
Poynter / Kristen Hare
‘It’s on us…the cavalry is not coming,’ says the founder of a new local news project in Detroit →
Ashley Woods, of the Detroit Free Press, won a spot in The Information’s accelerator, for her news idea called Detour, an email newsletter and subscription company: “[W]e’re really going to be looking to our audience and our members to help us define what we cover. For an undecided, but low, monthly fee, members will have access to private Facebook groups and Slack channels to talk about the news without trolls.”
The New York Times / Kevin Draper
Why subscriptions-only sports startup The Athletic wants to pillage local newspapers →
"I think the sports page has carried local papers for a while, and they don't treat it well.”