Fresh useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism
You might have heard: After complaints from publishers that Facebook’s rules made it too hard to sell ads for Instant Articles, Facebook loosened its restrictions on advertising in Instant Articles
But did you know: Some publishers say they’re able to generate as much revenue from a view on Instant Articles as they are on a pageview on their own mobile websites (Wall Street Journal)
After some frustration with Facebook’s advertising restrictions, publishers are finding it easier to generate revenue from Instant Articles, Jack Marshall reports. Notably, some publishers are even saying that they are generating the same amount of ad revenue per pageview as they are on their own mobile websites. While Instant Articles is still largely an experiment for many publishers, Marshall writes that’s a significant milestone for Instant Articles if Facebook wants the program to be viable for publishers.
+ Noted: Time Inc. acquires Vidant, the owner of MySpace and a large ad tech business (TechCrunch) and Time Inc. is expected to use the acquisition for Facebook-style targeting (The Drum); Google Accelerated Mobile Pages are expected to launch later this month (Advertising Age); A new feature from The Washington Post called “Re-Engage” aims to engage inactive or distracted readers by recommending other stories based on the user’s interests (Washington Post); Vox is looking to get into e-commerce and hiring a commerce editor to help visitors “discover great products for purchase,” and “play a significant role in the buildout of a new commerce venture” (Wall Street Journal)
API UPDATE
The week in fact-checking
As part of our fact-checking journalism project, Jane Elizabeth and Poynter’s Alexios Mantzarlis highlight stories worth noting related to truth in politics and on the Internet. This week’s round-up is the first edition of the new joint effort with Poynter and includes red flags for false claims, how fact-checking could help media in Italy, and why political gaffes are being replaced by lies.
How NYT improved the startup time of its Android app to 1.6 seconds from over 5 seconds (New York Times)
When The New York Times released its Android app, the startup time was 5.6 seconds, a number that’s now been reduced to 1.6 seconds. NYT senior Android engineer Mike Nakhimovich explains how they reduced the startup time by removing plug-ins and changing how third-party analytics were integrated.
+ Earlier this week Instagram started letting users switch between multiple accounts, and now it’s adding another feature that could be useful for publishers: Instagram will start showing video view counts for all users (Digiday)
Business Insider Deutschland is doubling its staff and expanding its original reporting, but can BI’s type of tech reporting take off in Germany? (Nieman Lab)
Business Insider Deutschland launched in November as the eighth BI edition outside of the U.S., but Nieman Lab’s Shan Wang writes that Germany isn’t been the easiest place for expansion: Financial Times’ German spin-off folded in 2012, and there’s been a flood of other Millennial-focused publications moving into Germany, including BuzzFeed. Wang writes: “If the Business Insider diet of readable stories laid out over videos and GIFs and listicles was still rare when it was contemplating its entrance into the German market, it’s not such a novelty now.”
+ U.K’s The Independent and its Sunday edition will stop printing in late March, and its lower-price counterpart “i” will be sold to Johnston Press; owner Evgeny Lebedev says: “This decision preserves the Independent brand and allows us to continue to invest in the high quality editorial content that is attracting more and more readers to our online platforms” (Guardian)
How ‘superbosses’ spot and create brilliance in their employees (Business Insider)
Dartmouth professor Sydney Finkelstein has a theory that a certain kind of manager, called a “superboss,” is capable of cultivating the next generation of talented leaders in their industry, turning those employees into stars. These kinds of managers are capable of spotting incredible talent in potential employees, and creating it in existing employees. Finkelstein says there’s five key traits of a “superboss” that any manager can pick up, including fearlessness, a competitive spirit, imagination, integrity, and authenticity.
+ How “superbosses” hire with unconventional methods, such as ignoring credentials such as advanced degrees in favor of psychological evaluations (Harvard Business Review)
News organizations are divided over how to cover Trump, but he may present an opportunity for accountability journalism (Washington Post)
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has divided news organizations on how exactly to cover him: The Huffington Post at one point considered stories about Trump to be entertainment and is now including an editor’s note on Trump stories, while CNN has offered an excess of Trump coverage. But despite the debate on how to cover Trump, Erik Wemple says Trump could provide a unique opportunity for accountability journalism: “Trump may well represent one moment where clickbait and accountability journalism form a partnership. To understand Trump’s wide-ranging awfulness, after all, you need to present wide-ranging coverage.”
Quartz’s new app lets users chat with the news, rather than just reading it (Wired)
Quartz launched its first app on Thursday with a unique approach: Rather than just giving users stories to read, users chat with the app. Instead of simply sending headlines, the app sends users messages that read more like a text message from a friend. Messages often include GIFs, and when it runs out of new stories, the app will ask users trivia questions. Chat apps are quickly growing in popularity, particularly overseas, and Quartz lead designer Daniel Lee says “it’s a very underutilized interface” by news organizations.
+ Earlier: Quartz decided to launch an app because it’s seeing its audience change and the app landscape change
FOR THE WEEKEND
+ Twitter’s problem isn’t that it’s not growing, it’s that people expect it to keep growing, Farhad Manjoo writes (New York Times), an idea reinforced by the fact that the number of Twitter users did not grow at all in the fourth quarter of 2015 (Fast Company)
+ An in-depth look at some of the issues facing food media, including that the important conversations around food aren’t happening in food-focused publications anymore and PR teams have too much of an influence on what stories get covered (First We Feast)
+ Jim Brady, as ESPN ombudsman, revisits the decision to shutter Grantland: “The closing of Grantland made for an extremely sad day in journalism. But that doesn’t automatically make closing it the wrong decision. Because, in a roundabout way, ESPN might have done Grantland’s legacy a favor. The site died still young and vibrant, probably exactly the way its staff and readers would prefer.” (ESPN)
The post Need to Know: Feb. 12, 2016 appeared first on American Press Institute.
from American Press Institute http://ift.tt/20PV9TQ
0 التعليقات:
Post a Comment