Fresh useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism
You might have heard: Google’s answer to Instant Articles, Accelerated Mobile Pages, officially launched Wednesday (Silicon Valley Business Journal)
But did you know: Google AMP makes mobile web pages load faster, but require publishers to maintain a second version of their stories (Nieman Lab)
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages can load mobile web pages as much as 85 percent faster than a typical mobile web page, but a significant challenge for publishers is the need to maintain another version of their web pages for AMP. McClatchy’s head of mobile initiatives Damon Kiesow says: “Everything we know about building a web page we have to relearn. But we’re relearning it from the premise of converting a current product over, not creating a product from scratch.”
+ Unlike Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles, Google AMP offers support for paywalls, but relies on readers searching for information while Apple and Facebook can suggest stories to readers (Bloomberg Business)
+ Dan Gillmor writes that while news organizations don’t feel like they have a choice about jumping onto platforms, it’s a short-sighted plan: “If one or two or a few centralized companies control the flow of news, information and conversation, that’s dangerous on its face; should Facebook and Apple (and Google) have the power to pick the big winners in journalism and other information services?” (Backchannel)
+ Noted: New Media Investment Group is buying smaller newspapers nationwide, becoming one of the most aggressive newspaper consolidators along with Gannett and Berkshire Hathaway Media Group (Wall Street Journal) Wired dismisses reporting fellow Nic Cavell for plagiarism and adds notes to four of his stories saying they failed to meet journalistic standards (Retraction Watch); A new print newspaper, The North State Journal, is launching in North Carolina as a Sunday-only publication (Raleigh & Company); Genius hires former Gawker editor Leah Finnegan as its managing news editor to lead its news division (Politico Media)
USA Today’s FTW is experimenting with Facebook live video because of its authenticity and immediacy (Digiday)
USA Today senior social media editor Hemal Jhaveri says they’re experimenting with Facebook live video because it “rivals the immediacy of television.” For sports site FTW, USA Today is using Facebook live video to give viewers a courtside view of NBA games and to talk to players. Jhaveri says USA Today is choosing to try Facebook live video as opposed to Twitter’s Periscope or Meerkat because their Facebook audience is more engaged than their Twitter audience, and Facebook live videos are automatically archived and available for viewing later.
+ More on Facebook live video: Vox is using Facebook live video to explain the presidential election and while Facebook live video isn’t being used by the masses just yet, it has a larger built-in audience than other streaming platforms
China’s new regulations requiring foreign media to receive approval before publishing online adds another hurdle for publishers (Poynter)
China’s new restrictions on foreign media go into effect in March, but Committee to Protect Journalists’ Bob Dietz says it’s not yet clear what the new restrictions will mean for publishers. News organizations like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal do not actually publish in China, and their servers are located outside of China, so the Chinese government could potentially block them. Dietz says: “The simple answer is that we don’t know what the impact of new regulations will be. The wording’s unclear and it’s also unclear how they’ll be enforced, if at all, and to what extent.”
Why Quartz is using Medium to document its move to a new office (Poynter)
“Moving offices can be a pain, but it’s also an opportunity to take stock of how the company has grown what it could still become,” Quartz’s Zach Seward writes. To do that, Quartz is documenting its move to a new office on Medium, writing about topics including how to capture a company’s culture in a physical space and how they came up with their office layout.
Bill Simmons’ partnership with Medium highlights its focus on becoming a platform for publishers (Digiday)
Medium CEO Ev Williams has said that he envisions Medium becoming more of a social network than a publishing tool for an “impassioned, engaged, and influential audience.” But as it has brought on publications such as Bill Simmons’ latest venture The Ringer and The Awl’s Billfold, Digiday’s Lucia Moses writes that some staff say the transition has been a confusing one: “They’ll say, ‘Do groundbreaking work,’ but it’s really about getting people on Medium. They don’t really know what they want to do with paid content and publications.”
Austin Beutner: Local news organizations should take advantage of their ‘unique geography’ (Nieman Lab)
Under Jack Griffin’s leadership at Tribune Publishing, the company focused on a national strategy to sell more national ads based on scale. But former Los Angeles Times publisher Austin Beutner says he was more interested in taking advantage of the opportunities of local communities: “There’s very little commonality across those [markets], and you can’t support some sort of national selling infrastructure. Nobody wants to buy a national ad, especially from an organization that covers 7 percent of the country. What we set about doing in Los Angeles was to think about the unique geography of where we were.”
The post Need to Know: Feb. 25, 2016 appeared first on American Press Institute.
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