Category results for "Innovation"

The U.K.’s DMG is a media heavyweight by most measures and the group’s Daily Mail ranks close to the top on any chart for online newsbrands. In terms of web traffic, it places fourth in the U.K., 10th in the U.S. and sixth globally according to the U.K.’s Press Gazette.

At the FIPP World Media Congress in Portugal earlier this month, the U.K. news giant outlined its adoption of a “launch everyday” philosophy that, surprisingly, owes a lot to the paper’s print heritage. The result was a 300% increase in subscriber numbers in just two years.

Product director Simon Regan-Edwards was unable to travel, but Denis Haman of CMS supplier Glide stood in to explain how the Mail+ team brought a print mindset to the evolution of the Mail+ subscription product first launched in 2013.

Mail+ began by replicating the newspaper experience online. Between its launch in 2013 and 2020, Mail+ secured 40,000 subscriptions as a digital replica available across multiple devices, including Kindle and Amazon’s Alexa.

In March 2020, the decision was taken to begin building out the Mail+ offering and by June 2022 it had 120,000 subscribers in total, with 76,000 digital only subscribers. This level of growth is impressive in itself, but even more so considering the free-to-access Mail Online site sits alongside it.

Two years, nine updates

Over the two years between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2022, the Mail+ team delivered nine major updates.

These started with the introduction of briefings and newsletters and the addition of content in areas where the audience wanted to see more — TV and radio, food and health. Mail+ today incorporates Best Of sections, ListenTo functions and puzzles.

Moving through a homepage rebuild and a new storefront to improve the subscriber sign-up journey, Mail+ then made the shift to an edition-based format with three daily updates.

Additional releases have since brought author and category pages, new sections, and enhanced search functionality. More recently, the team implemented a second home page redesign to pull together a unified Mail+ offering.

“It’s been actually incredible to watch,” said Haman, “The Daily Mail team has managed to work and rework the product and reconfigure what it means to the customers. I have rarely seen a product move at such a pace and reinvent itself repeatedly.”

And the results have been applauded independently. Lewis Wiltshire, former head of media partnerships at Twitter described the most recent redesign as “A beautifully elegant looking website — almost Athletic-esque.”

So how did the Mail+ team do it?

Agile print

Haman began by exploding the misconception that a print foundation will slow digital development, arguing that print is possibly the most agile of all content channels.

“It gets destroyed and remade every single day, with the opportunity to redraw it, reshape it, rework it. And it has to hit the deadlines,” he explained. The Mail digital team brought that print mindset to the rebuilding of Mail+. That meant launching “every day, every week, every month.”

Of course, digital is not the same as print and Haman noted that there are “sensible limits” to digital development, meaning everything takes more time than you might think. Quoting Alan Hunter, former head of digital at The Times, Haman said: “This means you won’t be asking for a new product feature on a Tuesday and expecting it to be in the app by Friday.”

Crucially, the Mail digital team was given license from the very top to keep going until the right formula was found for Mail+. From that foundation and armed with audience data that suggested there was a real interest in the evolving subscription product, the team built quickly following a rigorous framework for decision making.

Ask what problem you are solving

Haman described the sweet spot for innovation between visibility, viability and desirability. He said it was important to be disciplined in asking key questions. Do customers want the features you are developing? Are they financially viable and are they technically possible with the available resources?

“It’s really important to fall back on the process,” said Haman. “If you’re under pressure you can easily find yourself jumping to conclusions.”

Data is crucial in building insight into what is building habits and why people do what they do. But Haman said it is also important to be open to new voices. He highlighted customer-service teams, sometimes overlooked, but often a powerful source of knowledge into what motivates or demotivates readers.

Data also avoids the HIPPO trap — the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. Haman explained, “without data, it’s just an opinion.”

Networked teams bring together diverse groups with different perspectives and different skills, all the disciplines needed to launch a product. It’s important to give everyone access to the data to understand how it relates to revenue, engagement, and readership.

Haman emphasized the importance of giving everyone on the team a voice, and making sure that they are truly engaged in asking “What problem are we solving?” However, he took care to explain that although everyone should have a voice, “not everyone makes the decisions.”

Be realistic

To separate “should” from “could” and focus on priorities, the Mail+ development team used the MoSCoW methodology:

Must have
Should have
Could have
Won’t have

This helped the development team move faster and, crucially, get data back quickly to provide valuable insights for moving forward.

The team used digital tools across functions to “dig into” designs before development started. Haman compared this to making sure your architect’s plans are solid before starting to build; it’s considerably cheaper to revise plans than tear down half the house to make things right. Then lock designs to prevent changes at the 11th hour. “I love the fact that they would laminate designs,” he said. “It’s genuinely locked until it is released.”

The elegant exit

Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, said it is important to act on your temporary conviction as if it was a real conviction; and when you realize that you are wrong, correct course very quickly.

Data, again, provided insight to what was working and what wasn’t for The Daily Mail. And if something wasn’t working, Haman said it was important to ignore the sunk cost fallacy — that we have spent all this money and we have to make it work. He explained, “If it’s going in the wrong direction, you need to be brave enough to cut your losses, pivot, or rather elegantly exit and move to a new direction.”

Regan-Edwards made a guest appearance at the end of the session via Zoom and I asked him if he thought at the start of the project he would make nine major updates in two years? He said, “No, but I think what we learned through this whole process is don’t predict what’s coming in two years time, focus on what are we delivering for this next quarter. What makes sense in this next quarter? What do we want to do in the quarter after that?”

He also re-emphasized the importance of being led by feedback from customers. “We have a big focus on puzzles,” he said. “That’s come from the feedback of how people are using the product.”

And finally, he said, overcome the “moonshot mentality” that says, “We’re done now, let’s put it in the cupboard. Instead, get into the mentality that you want to constantly improve.”

Featured Post | Innovation | Perspectives

Streaming is for everyone: three strategic considerations

May 31, 2022 Christy Tanner, Founder – Coraly Partners and Senior Advisor Oaklins DeSilva & Phillips

2022 already has been a dramatic year for streaming. Even if you’re not trying to keep up with day-to-day industry developments, you’re probably aware that CNN+ launched and died, Netflix announced plans to launch an ad-supported tier, and IMDb TV was renamed “Freevee.” These rapid developments may seem daunting for many potential streaming players, considering that the ground will shift again soon.

But here’s the good news about these rapid changes: While the “Streaming Wars” narrative — referring primarily to competition among media giants’ SVOD strategies — remains the focus of many in the business and trade press, the reality is that there are wide-open opportunities for a variety of players. Whether it’s a paid app, a YouTube channel, or a free channel on a FAST service, streaming is definitely not confined to the players locked in the so-called streaming wars. Streaming is for everyone.

We’re just getting started

SVOD, AVOD, FAST, OTT, and CTV are not only competing, overlapping, and complementary acronyms — they represent multiple potential business models as well as multiple avenues to reach audiences looking for entertainment, news, and sports. Across devices, services, and platforms, there are more opportunities than ever before to develop content, products and business models contributing to the next evolution of the streaming industry.

Media players and startups — large and small — can compete and win the loyalty and trust of consumers. By the end of 2022, we will see new players on the streaming scene — growing, thriving, and innovating to capture audience attention and significant revenue opportunities.

Find your place in streaming

The fact is, it remains early days for streaming viewership, and we need bold players to bring expertise and creativity to the space. So let’s set aside the winners-take-most Streaming Wars narrative and consider these factors:

1. Focus on the right video strategy for your audience.

In the streaming space, many strategies and tactics are still in an experimental stage, so don’t assume that your traditional competitor’s widely-publicized strategy is going to work. And definitely do not copy their strategy without significant research and diligence, because you may find that your competitor doesn’t have a clue — and won’t provide significant competition at all in the streaming space. For instance, it may be that launching a solid AVOD or FAST strategy will give you much of the data you need to make a decision about an SVOD strategy.

2. It’s easier and less expensive than you think to get started.

There are new technologies and new tech companies that can support a variety of streaming strategies. Generally speaking, these options are less expensive, more standardized and faster to implement than many broadcast technologies. Additionally, trusted brands will be in a good place to negotiate with these vendors.

3. Creativity and innovation are badly needed in the streaming space.

Think about how hard it is — still — to navigate streaming interfaces. This space needs to improve the consumer experience, ASAP. With so many major media brands in flux, those who are focused on making streaming a great consumer experience have an incredible chance to jump in and create a successful strategy.

Focus on the consumer to improve what’s ahead

The complexity of the streaming landscape is enough to confound savvy media veterans and newcomers alike. But this complexity should not prevent most media players from crafting or revamping their streaming strategy – now. It’s a wide-open field for trusted brands and innovators, especially those who create content, products and services with viewers at the center. We all have a lot to learn from rapidly shifting consumer habits and preferences, and the timing has never been better to start learning.

About the author

Christy Tanner, President of Tanner Media LLC, is former EVP & GM of CBS Interactive, where she built CBS News Digital/CBSN into the #1 streaming news service, with more than 1 billion streams in 2020 and 2021.

Featured Post | Innovation

How social audio supports The Washington Post’s “adoption, addiction, and affection” strategy

May 19, 2022 Jessica Patterson – Independent Media Reporter

In the 18 months since social audio spaces were introduced the media landscape, digital content companies have experimented to uncover their purpose and how they can best serve audiences. For The Washington Post, the answer was revealed amid the discussion of a massive leak of offshore data, which exposed the secrets, deals, and assets of the world’s rich and powerful.

The Pandora Papers investigation was not The Post’s first use of social audio. They’d experimented with Clubhouse in mid-May 2021 and held their first Twitter Spaces event June 10, 2021.

It was, however, one of their most ambitious experiments as it involved other global news organizations simultaneously joining the Twitter Spaces event. The Pandora Papers investigation spanned five continents and involved 600 journalists in 117 countries.

“The Pandora Papers was the largest reporting consortium in journalism history. We’re talking about [journalists examining] 11.9 million documents and financial records,” said Michelle Jaconi, head of news talent strategy and development at The Washington Post.

That’s a wealth of information – but a challenge to present given its scope and depth. “The amount of nuance that you can go into in a platform in audio where you don’t have the set limitations of an article is wonderful.”

“Twitter Spaces has been an incredible playground for creativity and exploring ways where we could stretch that platform,” Jaconi said. “That one was one of the biggest and most ambitious spaces we’ve done, because we did it across different newsrooms. It was an incredibly fascinating test and stretch, and incredibly well received.”

Space(s) for transparency and engagement

Social audio allows The Post to share the teamwork and collaboration that takes place in their newsroom, Jaconi explained. The work that goes into a large scale, investigative report is largely invisible to readers. However, the audio format allows the journalists to communicate the process and passion that goes into a project like this one. As Jaconi points out, “The voices humanize the work, effort, the passion and the care that goes into every piece of journalism at The Post.”

One thing the team at The Post has learned through its use of social audio is that the audience is incredibly curious and wants to learn more about the journalistic process.

“We learned, wow, there is an audience for this, and [social audio] is incredibly good for things that are so complex that you need extra time and nuance and care to explain,” Jaconi said. “And, especially with Pandora Papers, we were testing the platform and how much we could stretch the production capabilities of an audio event that was truly global. We had some issues. But I think Twitter’s even gotten better since then at the product and the production aspect of doing massive events.”

Attracting and engaging audiences

Like all publications, Jaconi says The Washington Post not only wants to increase the size of its audience, but also engage younger, next generation, diverse and global audiences. For the use of Twitter Spaces grew the following of @washingtonpost on Twitter, as well as the following of their reporters.

“I think one of the things that social audio is incredible for is that social platforms convene audiences of curious people – or sometimes just bored people who become curious when they see a trending hashtag,” Jaconi said. “Every time we do one of these spaces, our reporters get new followers. That shows that we’re building audience.”

Social audio spaces create an intimate connection between The Post and their audience, on a device that many use to interact with their family and friends. “That is a wonderful way for us to not tell our expertise, but instead to show it. We do it in a way that provides intimate connection between our reporters and their audience,” Jaconi said.

For reporters who often work in text-based mediums, one of the things that makes social audio fun is that they get to know their audiences more personally and engage directly.

“While you’re talking, you can actually see avatars and photos of people joining in that conversation right there with you. And that is something that I love for reporters to know,” Jaconi said. “Who doesn’t like telling a story and looking at the avatar of someone and saying, ‘oh, thank you for listening. That’s so interesting that you’re popping into this conversation and listening to me.’ That has been really rewarding for everyone who’s participating.”

And, as it continues to improve the functionality of Spaces, Twitter is now surfacing live audio to users when they first log in and providing beacons to audiences indiscriminately. This adds value for digital content companies because previously, Twitter had only surfaced Spaces to an organization’s existing audience.

“Social audio is one of the most exciting playgrounds right now to gather new audiences because the product keeps getting better,” Jaconi said.

Adoption, addiction, affection

In helping Post reporters reach new audiences, Jaconi looks for a funnel of adoption, addiction, and affection. With The Post’s recent reporting on the war in Ukraine, Jaconi said they are seeing an uptick in followers, but also affection. Social audio plays into this by increasing the personal engagement between audience and reporters.

In particular, The Post has sees a trend of audience members sending deeply moving messages. “People have been following reporters for the first time and posting comments like: ‘I am praying for your safety. I hope you’re okay. Please be all right.’ That is affection and concern for our journalists,” Jaconi said, noting that she’s never seen this kind of thing take place at this scale before.

“To have that be the overwhelming chat response to an audio space from our reporters covering the war, boy, is that a different experience for our journalists and reporters,” Jaconi said. “It means that we we’ve done a really good job and reaching people who are interested in information and are interested in building that relationship with us and our reporters.”

Lessons learned

Jaconi explained that there are a few best practices in the social audio space that digital content companies ought to think about.

First, update your Twitter app. Jaconi explained that Twitter often updates Twitter Spaces and improves and fine tunes its functionality. (We covered some of those in our last social audio piece.)

Second, remember that audience members can join Twitter Spaces mid-stream. It’s possible those audience members have never met you before. Hosts should make a habit of re-introducing themselves during the course of an event. This should include addressing new people joining the Space and telling them what they’re speaking about, their name, background, expertise, and the topic of discussion.

“It doesn’t have to be boiler plate. It can be done in a casual way. But also, because there’s audiences that are listening while they’re multitasking, I really urge people to introduce themselves again,” Jaconi said.

Thirdly, Jaconi suggested that digital content companies who engage in social audio spaces ought to “feed their audience.” This means give your social audio space a thread of everything you covered in that space. If you’re using social audio to discuss investigations, mention the methodology of your investigation, the complexity of doing the investigation, biographies of speakers or guests and the like, in a thread. This assures that the listening experience isn’t just a one-off that happened in the Twitterverse, and instead is and can be connected to other content, events, or used in the future.

“It is so rare, and so exceptionally powerful, to be in the same place as your audience at the same time, with everybody convened,” Jaconi said. “You’re convening the curious at something that you’re an expert in. So feed them when they’re there, because it might be a while before you convene them again.”

Featured Post | Innovation

Doubling down on personalizing the reader experience

April 28, 2022 Jason Langsner, Senior Product Manager – WaPo 360

Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan co-starred in Space Jam. Bill Cinton was re-elected to serve a second term as President of the United States. Tiger Woods became a professional golfer. The Summer Olympics were hosted in Atlanta. And washingtonpost.com went live. What do all of these events have in common? They all took place in 1996.

It has been 25 years since those first readers could get their news from The Washington Post online. Back then, Post articles couldn’t be “googled,” since Google — as a company — would be founded two years later. And sharing a news article with friends couldn’t involve Facebook or Twitter, as these networks wouldn’t come to market for eight and 10 more years, respectively… TikTok was only the sound an analog clock made and early-social media adopters were closer to Tom being their first friend on MySpace than influencers going viral and becoming millionaires from creating content on Instagram, Snapchat and/or YouTube.

News consumption was a one-size fits all paradigm: heard or seen via broadcast news on TV or radio, read from printed ink on paper, and skimmed from websites that were effectively static brochureware representations of their print big brothers (with some supplemental content online). There was no personalization. The model was one-to-many: here are the top things reader X, Y and Z need to know to stay informed. That model is changing and has changed. And The Post has shown success in personalizing the news to readers’ interests through My Post, newsletter subscriptions and much much more.

Stay tuned, Washington Post readers are about to see more personalization in 2022!

Creating and distributing the news: then vs. now

An “Apple-to-Apple” Comparison of Reading The Washington Post
on December 20 in 1996 and 2021 through then-Modern Apple Technology:

The December 20, 1996, homepage of washingtonpost.com on an Apple Macintosh

Rhe December 20, 2021, home screen of the WashPost iOS app on an Apple iPhone

Change is good. But change needs to be managed. A lot has changed in this last quarter century at the intersection of media and technology. The Post has responded to change by building new systems that manage how content is created, distributed and amplified. But one thing has remained constant — great reporters and editors create great journalism.

Another constant is that quality journalism will be seen or heard by consumers looking to stay informed. And it can shine through the cloudy haze of mis-and-disinformation maliciously shared online.

Although these constants of good journalism from trusted institutional brands and other media players communicating the news remains, how consumers get their news has certainly changed with the times. In today’s digital new media landscape, according to The Pew Research Center, “more than eight-in-ten U.S. adults (86%) say they get news from a smartphone, computer, or tablet ‘often’ or ‘sometimes.’”

As a media AND technology company, The Washington Post has not just followed consumers to their preferred destinations, it has been a leader in creating content and bringing it to readers — readers who may have an interest in politics can get their Daily 202 newsletter emailed to them; food enthusiasts can cook with confidence with Voraciously recipes and guides; podcast listeners can subscribe to Post Reports, Please Go On, Can He Do That, and other audio format news; and over 1.2 million fans of @washingtonpost on TikTok can be informed and entertained by short, witty, videos by a creative team of content creators.

All of this work needs to live somewhere. Platforms, tools and services power this news before it reaches readers’ smartphones, computers, or tablets. The Washington Post has had to understand not just the scalable infrastructure needs of today to deliver this news where and how readers want it, but technology leadership has also had to set the organization up to be successful in the future with new and expanding infrastructure and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) resources. It’s like the old sports adage — Wayne Gretzky wasn’t the fastest skater on the ice in the NHL and he wasn’t the biggest professional hockey player. He was the greatest because he played not to where the puck currently is, but where the puck was going.

The Post’s aspiration and northstar is to not just continue to deliver excellence in journalism, but also to equally deliver excellence in engineering and innovation. The Post is playing to where the innovation puck is going by as, Deloitte Insights suggests, “designing systems in which humans and machines work together to improve the speed and quality of decision-making.” The Post is doing this to improve the reader experience through personalization and to allow company leaders to turn more data into actionable intelligence at scale.

“I’ve always understood and appreciated the work that The Post contributes to the journalistic space, but interviewing [for my role at The Post] quickly made me realize the sophistication behind the engineering effort supporting that mission.”
— Washington Post Data Engineer Jack Miller, who joined The Post in 2021.

Data, data, everywhere. Data, data, time to share.

Moore’s Law highlights the correlation of computing power essentially doubling every two years. That’s become more of a rule than a law over-time. Another rule that has held steady is the total amount of data created or copied doubles roughly every two years — therefore, The Post has seen a whole lot of redoubling of total data since 1996 and Post engineering leadership expects that trend continue in the coming years.

Inside-and-outside of the newsroom, The Post — as a business — relies heavily on data-informed decision making at strategic and operational levels. Over the years, in addition to the increased need to approach data management in a holistic way, The Post has experienced a significant increase in subscriptions and traffic across various platforms and channels. This increased data volume and velocity coupled with new sources and complexities has created new challenges (and opportunities) to turn raw, siloed and unstructured data into business intelligence.

To address these challenges/opportunities and gain maximum journalistic and business benefits from reader interests, The Post began to develop a more integrated approach to data management in 2021 under the leadership of Beth Diaz (Vice President of Audience Development & Analytics), Venkatesh Varalu (Head of Data and Analytics), and in collaboration with leaders across Subscriptions, Advertising, Newsroom, Marketing, Finance, Product and Engineering.

This data was available and accessible prior to 2021, but The Post began to manage it in a more innovative, agile and programmatic way. Under this new approach, customer data is being positioned to power various marketing and reader personalization efforts through enhanced workflows, automations and data activations via homegrown tools or services and vendor platforms. The Post is calling this macro-initiative WaPo 360.

“I’ve always been a huge fan of data. Working as a newsletter analyst, I got the opportunity to explore The Post’s various data sets to answer interesting questions about how our readers behave, and to find evidence of what works best for keeping them engaged,” said WaPo 360 Senior Data Engineer Patrick Haney. “It was a fantastic experience. However, while working with these data sets, it became almost immediately clear that they weren’t arranged in an optimal format for analysis. Answering simple business questions could take hours instead of minutes due to the siloed nature of each data set, along with the business logic that needed to be applied in a consistent fashion and often it required reaching out to a subject matter expert for validation.”

“I was ecstatic when I learned about this new data integration initiative because it would solve all these aforementioned issues and enable analysts and non-analysts to quickly and efficiently use our data to answer vital business questions,” said Haney regarding his choice to transfer from one Post team onto another.

Graphic showing 5 levels of insight-driven organizational maturity: analytics aware, localized analytics, analytical aspirations, analytical companies and analytical competitors — *Deloitte’s Insight-Driven Organization (IDO) Maturity Scale*

According to a recent Deloitte study, “most executives do not believe their companies are insight-driven. Fewer than four in 10 (37 percent) place their companies in the top two categories of the Insight-Driven Organization (IDO) Maturity Scale, and of those, only 10 percent fall into the highest category. The remaining 63 percent are aware of analytics but lack infrastructure, are still working in silos, or are expanding ad hoc analytics capabilities beyond silos.”

WaPo 360 will improve the turn-around time for The Post to turn data and signals into insight-driven business decisions.

WaPo 360 and the engineering experience

When he applied to work at The Post, Jack Miller said his “interviewers stressed the importance of the WaPo 360 project across many different verticals within the organization. Being able to join a growing team supporting that project was a huge reason why I decided to pursue the position and so far it has been a great experience.”

Fellow team Data Engineer Zach Lynn agrees, saying, “the WaPo 360 project struck me as an excellent opportunity to learn and also support The Washington Post’s core mission.” Lynn’s interest included working in several business areas and collaborating with other software teams.

The first step of WaPo 360 has been focused on stitching data signals from various data sources together. Data that previously was unstructured and accessible only to data analysts is becoming democratized for Washington Post engineers and technical business users. This first pillar of work is essentially warming up the oven and organizing all of the ingredients to make it easier for business stakeholders, in different departments, to bake their own pies. Data from site and app traffic, newsletter engagements, ads, subscriptions, and other sources are becoming more structured in WaPo 360 through Customer 360 — our first pillar of the initiative.

A Washington Post data analyst recently presented how his work has been impacted by WaPo 360. In his presentation, he outlined how he experienced a nearly 96% improvement in a SQL query run time by switching data sources from the siloed unprocessed data that he was looking for to the same data signals that were structured and pre-processed in WaPo 360. As noted earlier, different data sets have been accessible before 2021, but with WaPo 360, The Post is turning data into intelligence and making it easier for staff to do their jobs. WaPo 360 is essentially replacing their hand tools with power tools.

Flowchart showing four steps: Raw WashPost data, then semi-structured data, then structured data, then customer 360 data

WaPo 360 and the business-user experience

The data that is becoming structured and pre-processed in Customer 360 isn’t just going to live on an island to be visited by data analysts and data engineers. The second pillar of WaPo 360 is to make that data accessible to those with a business need to access it, in anonymized ways, through improved self-service tools.

Flowchart showing three steps: Customer 360 data, then Customer Data Platform, then either offsite marketing services or internal email and website personalization tools

Joshua Zieve, Senior Data Analyst, joined the WaPo 360 team, to “help catalyze The Washington Post’s data sources to better understand and serve our current and prospective readership.” Zieve has been active in coordinating with business and technical users on many fronts. “Working across the Analytics & Engineering teams, I’m grateful for the opportunity to develop systems that facilitate, deepen and expedite analytics for use-cases throughout the organization,” Zieve said.

Good data is the foundation for WaPo 360 and that leads to personalization benefits. Following the team’s work in delivering structured data in Customer 360, WaPo 360 sends relevant data to power the business use-cases that Zieve references into a new Customer Data Platform (CDP). The CDP then works as an engine to allow business-users to perform exploratory data analysis, build audience segments, create marketing and reader engagement campaigns, analyze their success, then deliver an improved personalized experience to readers through integrations with Washington Post-built tools and popular offsite services that The Post utilizes to reach potential readers.

“[I’m] most excited about the self-service potential for The Post’s newsroom and business teams … with data in one place, which is aggregated and ready to be queried, users can get their data without waiting for The Post’s Analytics team to prepare the data. For the Analytics team, this will also reduce time spent for serving ad hoc requests from the newsroom/business side.”
— Sam Han, Director of Zeus Technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Machine Learning at The Washington Post

WaPo 360 and the reader experience

The Post will be doubling down on personalization in 2022 — directly and adjacent to the work being conducted by the WaPo 360 team.

Early work is underway to improve the onboarding experience for new subscribers. And the team plans to unlock significant opportunities to retool, rethink and reshape how articles are suggested to readers — such as through improved content insights and an updated Content Taxonomy System with new article subjects/topics metadata powering future innovation.

Members of the WaPo 360 team recently presented the team’s work at a company-wide virtual forum. Washington Post Organizational Development Consultant Cameron Booher said, “Planning for any What’s Next event involves talking with many project teams about their ongoing and upcoming initiatives. And the usual format of What’s Next is to highlight three projects from different areas of the business. But it very quickly became evident through conversations just how significant of an undertaking WaPo 360 is. It’s extremely collaborative, and has been built upon expertise from almost every department at The Post. It will be rolled out in various phases, which speaks to the iterative process of develop-test-improve.”

“Some of the insights we’ll gain will help us improve reader and user experiences in spades,” Booher said.

This article originally appeared on Washington Post Engineering and is re-published with permission.

Featured Post | Innovation

Publishers try a fraction of the news for a fraction of the cost

April 21, 2022 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Independent Media Reporter

As the subscriptions race has intensified, media companies are turning their attention to the substantial segments of their audience who aren’t willing — or financially able — to pay for a full subscription. Some are returning to the tried and true tactic of lower-cost ad-supported offerings, while others have doubled down on putting the plus in premium.

News brands have always run the gamut from super-premium to completely ad supported. And some have speculated that the trend of premium digital news offerings – with the notable success of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Financial Times – bodes poorly for readers in search of quality and value. And the proliferation of low cost or free offerings can often overwhelm, and even under-inform when consumers actually avoid the news.

It’s possible that a new approach is emerging which may address these issues – and offers premium brands a way to expose a broader range of consumers to their content.

A financial case

Last month, Financial Times launched a new lightweight offering called FT Edit. The app offers readers eight hand-picked stories every weekday for just £0.99 per month.

Though it has amassed 1.2 million subscribers to date, FT has traditionally attracted a certain kind of subscriber due to the high-end financial news it covers. A typical subscriber is of a higher income, with an interest in or working for the financial sector. Its most affordable digital package, which ranges from $40-$69 a month (£35-£55) would be a stretch for those who don’t need specialist financial coverage. If a consumer is after more general news, plenty of other organizations have more affordable subscriptions.

But increasingly, FT is gaining a following outside of its financial journalism. Part of that appears to be the result of making certain facets of its broader scope publicly available. Its coronavirus coverage was the first to be made freely available in March 2020. It currently has a page dedicated to free-to-read coverage of the Ukraine war “to keep everyone informed as events unfold”.

“We are known for financial news, and we’re incredibly strong at our core product. But we produce a wide breadth of news that matters, and I don’t think people really know that about the FT,” Assistant Editor Janine Gibson explained. “We weren’t really sure whether people wanted to read our free stuff more than anyone else’s, but it was very, very, very successful.”

Creating a more affordable product

The team began to see that there was a much wider appetite for their journalism. The conversations started to turn towards what a much lower-cost product would look like for the publisher. Their research about what people wanted came back with a core message: a simple product with a start and end point. Something more reflective, analytical, and deeply reported – but also expertly curated.

“There’s a different thing happening in the world of quality journalism. People understand that paying for quality journalism is vital, but they don’t necessarily have the resources or the appetite for the full, unexpurgated experience,” Gibson said.

Within a matter of months, FT Edit was conceived. Not only is the price point low, the limited offering provides a concise and digestible solution to too much news. The company says “the purpose of FT Edit is to provide an alternative to endless scrolling, allowing readers time to digest eight important stories selected for them each day. It will launch with the strapline: time well read.”

An audience-centric approach

The concern for many publishers considering this option is cannibalization of the existing subscriber audience. But Gibson sees the audience for FT Edit as adjacent to their core subscribers, not competing.

“This app isn’t here to solve a problem for a news organization,” she explained. “So many digital product launches over the last decade have come from a position of weakness, like ‘We need to replace this revenue gap’. This is, is there a wider audience out there at a lower price point for the FT? But we don’t need to offset the cost of what we already do.”

“The price point really reflects the commitment from the board and the chief executive to genuinely saying, ‘I would like to expose a much wider audience of people to some FT journalism.’”

Now, the app will go through some tweaks to find out how many stories each day works best. It is early days, but should the app get a good response in the UK, Gibson said a dedicated US version with content curated for a US audience would follow.

A bracing shot of news

FT is not the first publisher to experiment like this. The Economist’s Espresso app is the most well-known example of a separate, lower cost, lower quantity subscription offering. The recently updated app, launched eight years ago, was introduced as a daily digital briefing to complement the core magazine, with short pieces of news and analysis. It was marketed as a quick ‘shot’ of news to get readers ready for the day.

Espresso is included as part of The Economist’s full digital subscription. It is offered as a standalone app for $7.99 (£7.99) in the UK after a seven day free trial. Those who don’t choose to subscribe can still read one article a day.

The publisher has been working on an upgrade of the app over the past few months. The new version delivers Espresso stories in both written and audio form, alongside charts, facts and quotes each day. It also includes a ‘For You’ tab that lets the user sample four stories a week from the main Economist site, based on their interests.

“The new Espresso is aimed at readers who may not have the time or inclination for the more in-depth Economist experience,” a spokesperson told us. “We see it as introducing a new generation of readers to the Economist brand.”

“We imagine that, over time, some will migrate to an Economist subscription as they come to appreciate the role that our full journalism offerings can play in their lives.”

Is an app the perfect outreach product?

The question of affordable quality journalism is likely to become ever-more pressing as more publishers turn to reader revenue. From the Washington Post to Bloomberg – and even The Smith’s yet unlaunched Semafor – the market is saturated with publications targeting the global elite who barely blink at paying hundreds of dollars a year for news access.

The challenge for publishers looking to attract a wider audience to quality journalism is pricing for access. This is where paid products like apps or even newsletters can be a good way of building a relationship with readers without asking them to pay premium prices.

The longevity of Espresso and the initial success of FT Edit also demonstrate that audiences respond well to content with a start and a finish point. Aside from the obvious parallels to print newspapers, a carefully curated, high-quality set of stories is now seen as a refreshing antidote to the endless scrolling, misinformation, and frantic news cycle. In other words, for a tiny fraction of the cost, you get a tiny fraction of the news: just what you need to know, concisely offered and expertly crafted and delivered.

Now, limited is in demand. A small bundle of stories well-packaged for mobile could be the key for other publishers to unlocking their vast untapped audiences who haven’t yet opened their wallets.

Innovation | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Three strategies to help publishers maximize the ecommerce opportunity

April 13, 2022 Rebecca Cole, Director of Content and Communications – Sovrn

As online shopping habits evolve, ecommerce is becoming an increasingly attractive revenue opportunity for publishers. We can’t predict what will happen as the pandemic wanes, but prominent studies suggest that ecommerce will continue its upward trend in the coming years.

Given this rosy outlook, now is a great time to investigate the potential of ecommerce (or revisit your strategy). But ecommerce success isn’t guaranteed. It takes careful planning, smart choices, and the right technology partner.

If you’re looking for expert perspective on the key elements of a successful ecommerce strategy, take the time to read Ecommerce in Publishing: Trends and Strategies. Sponsored by Sovrn and published by What’s New In Publishing (WNIP), this new report offers deep insights into the ecommerce space to help publishers develop a winning ecommerce strategy (that goes beyond affiliate). It also provides insights on how to deliver an exceptional shopping experience and maximize revenue.

3 considerations for your ecommerce strategy

Whether you’re just starting out looking to enhance your strategy, there are certain key topics you’ll need to consider. Here are three of the big takeaways from our report:

1. Changing technologies

As ecommerce becomes increasingly enmeshed in the day-to-day digital experience, it’s easier than ever for consumers to make online purchases. And purchase capabilities now span a wide variety of channels – from traditional websites to social media outlets, mobile apps, and more. For publishers, this opens up new ecommerce opportunities that go far beyond traditional affiliate marketing, like curated online stores, subscription boxes, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) models, and more.

Things move fast in the world of online publishing, so there’s always a new tactic or technology to explore. At the same time, tried-and-true revenue sources can fall out of favor without warning. We’re seeing this play out before our eyes in recent months, with Facebook’s first-ever decline in usage and the phenomenon of “subscription fatigue.” Publishers who tap into multiple selling channels will have more revenue opportunities — and better protection from market volatility — than those who stick with a single online platform or property.

Look for flexible, easy-to-use solutions that work with almost any type of commerce content and one that evolves along with the industry. We believe personalization that delivers a unique shopping experience tailored to readers is the right approach. Also, tools such as price comparison make it easy to cut through the noise and help your readers find the best deals on the products they want.

2. Culture and content fit

It’s important to recognize that ecommerce is not a one-size-fits-all venture. Some ecommerce tactics will work better than others for your brand, your content, and your unique audience. Gaining a deep understanding of your reader base is a fundamental step in developing an approach to ecommerce that will resonate with your audience and selecting the products and merchants they’ll love.

Make sure you analyze which products and merchants are most appealing to your readers. For example, your audience may have strong engagement with certain content, or they may prefer a certain brand that’s featured on your site.

With a better understanding of your overall affiliate program, you can continue to refine your affiliate strategy and drive more revenue. A dashboard can help you identify these trends, by displaying performance metrics and delivering insights on what’s working (and what’s not).

3. Merchant diversification

Ecommerce success requires forming mutually beneficial partnerships with merchants that appeal to your audience. Most publishers start out promoting a single merchant like Amazon or Walmart, because they offer affiliate programs that are easy to understand and implement. But these internal programs rarely offer the highest rates or the most desirable products — and when your earnings rely on a single merchant, any change in commission structure can devastate your revenue stream.

By diversifying your merchant mix, you can ensure that no single vendor has a disproportionate impact on your earnings — and you’ll be in a better position to adjust your strategy in response to market fluctuations. Of course, your target merchant list may change over time as your content and your audience continue to evolve. You may also discover that individual merchants revise their requirements for affiliate approval from time to time — so it can be challenging to maintain a steady mix of merchants on your site.

Maximize your ecommerce potential

Undoubtedly, we’ve seen an acceleration in the adoption of ecommerce that presents an enormous opportunity. Media companies, which offer content that fits seamlessly into the shoppers journey, are in a position to benefit from this trend. But to do so, our research finds that there are a number of critical factors in play (a few of which I’ve covered here). With the right strategy in play, publishers are poised to be a vibrant port of the growing ecommerce marketplace.

About the Author

Rebecca Cole is the Director of Content and Communications for Sovrn, a publishing technology platform that provides advertising tools, technologies, and services for content creators to build their businesses, remain independent, and thrive on the Open Web. Rebecca has more than two decades of experience driving increased attention through purpose-driven content. She has held communications positions in tech, energy, and consumer brands and was a journalist and editor. Rebecca has an undergraduate degree from The University of Iowa and a master’s degree in journalism from The University of Colorado Boulder.

Featured Post | Innovation

For Axios, social audio builds journalists’ profiles and skillset

April 7, 2022 Jessica Patterson – Independent Media Reporter

For the last two years, social audio platforms have provided space hang out and chat. Businesses, brands, and groups have found that social audio fills a gap they were missing during the pandemic. Media companies have enthusiastically jumped into this format as a way to extend their brand and increase audience engagement and interaction. It’s also been a space for digital content companies like Axios to build their reporters’ on air experience and boost their profiles.

Neal Rothschild, director of Audience & Growth at Axios, says that they primarily use social audio for major news discussions, product launches, or new initiatives within the company. “We’re like, how can we add a little extra boom on top of it? And so we’ll do a Twitter Space for it.”

As Axios is still figuring out how to maximize potential of social audio, they are cautious about topic selection. “What we think is most impactful is you really need to make it about the topic that people care about, not just about Axios,” Rothschild explained.

For example, Axios hosted a Twitter Space in April 2021 about Biden’s first 100 days with reporters Alayna Treene, Hans Nichols, Stef Kight, and Sara Fischer. A few months later, Axios hosted a Twitter Space around the launch of their What’s Next daily newsletter with reporters Sam Ro, Joann Muller, and Erica Pandey.

Audience building

As is the case with the media’s exploration of many social channels, the hope is that the investment pays off in exposure to new audiences.

Reporters and journalists already live on Twitter, Rothschild explained. Thus, they have built-in audiences that carry over to their use of Twitter Spaces. However, those included in the Space – experts or guests – may also be popular on Twitter, which can be beneficial to increase reach and visibility.

“Using Twitter Spaces seems like a good bet for a media company, given the existing audiences and the ability to reach new audiences. If you’re doing a Twitter Spaces and you want to bring someone on as a guest and they have a huge following, you can have some cross-pollination and introduce your following to theirs. The potential is certainly there.”

The sound of success

However, beyond engaging in topical discussions and extending audience reach, Axios has found another interesting use for Twitter Spaces: providing its journalists with exposure and experience in the audio format.

“Some reporters are the type to go on MSNBC, CNN. Others are doing radio hits.” However, Rothschild points out that social audio is “definitely a nice option for kind reporters that don’t have as big of a public profile to have the opportunity to do live, on air experience.”

Digital content companies that want to build a brand for their reporters – many of whom are great, charismatic speakers – can use social audio as a way to introduce those personalities to the world, at a low cost.

“I think it’s important to many journalists — not all — to develop on-air skills. You never know when you might be invited onto a podcast or a radio hit or a TV hit, so getting reps in is valuable,” he said. “From a glory standpoint, it’s also a cool thing to show your friends, family and professional network. There’s a little more shine to being seen or heard than just having a byline on articles.”

Social audio hosting

But there a formula for social audio hosting. Like podcasts, hearing the “voice” of a host – both figuratively and literally – is an important component in social audio spaces. However, effective social audio hosts require a careful balance. While radio and television broadcasters deliver information in a natural voice with well-paced delivery and controlled breathing, this type of performance may sound too rehearsed on social audio platforms. On the other end of the performance spectrum, people who are less charismatic or animated will sound boring. Social audio hosts also run the risk of talking too much and overwhelming guests or the audience.

“I really think that the value of these products is that it sounds like an authentic conversation, and like you’re chatting in the living room among people. There’s cutting in and interrupting, with some give and take,” Rothschild says, “And its not just, here’s me doing my rehearsed two-minute sound bite like they might be used to on TV or radio.”

Many journalists studied writing and never planned for on air-careers. For media brands, it is always a plus to have their most popular writers extend their expertise into formats beyond text[jessica p1] . For them, social audio has the benefit of being audio-only. Hosts (and listeners) don’t have to worry about their appearance. Rothschild says that this comes through on the audio as sounding more relaxed and conversational – unlike Zoom events. “After two to three years of Zoom, I’m done. I’m so done,” he says. (And he’s not the only one.)

Spaces have potential

For digital content companies that need to see more data before jumping into social audio-based spaces, there are some interesting developments in the works. For example, Twitter has added replay stats for recorded events, so digital content companies can see how their audiences are tuning in after the fact, which could affect strategy and broadcast times. Twitter also offers Spaces analytics, which gives hosts access to data on replays for recorded Spaces, how many listeners tuned in, and how many replays the session had. Twitter also reports that it is testing other analytics tools for Spaces including total speakers in a session, duration, and monetization tracking for ticketed Spaces.

Social audio is still in its early stages so monetization and other concrete benefits have not yet crystalized. However, early forays into the format have offered different takeaways and reveal much potential. While Axios is still feeling its way through the new platform, they plan to continue to host spaces for the time being with the hopes that it will deliver audience reach. They also believe that social audio offers Axios’ journalists another way to raise their profile and promote their work as well as audio experience to broaden their skill set for the converged era of journalism we find ourselves in.

Innovation

Interactive offerings and rich archives put the plus in CNN streaming

April 6, 2022 Peggy Anne Salz, Founder and Lead Analyst – Mobile Groove

CNN is not new to digital. Its first iOS offering dates back to 2014. Things have changed a lot since then, though. Today, the market is overflowing with more than 600 streaming services and mobile apps from news and entertainment brands of all kinds. However, the company views its latest digital play as the most important step since Ted Turner launched CNN in 1980. With CNN+, the company is betting on an enhanced, interactive product that offers a truly premium digital experience.

As Robyn Peterson, CNN’s Chief Technology Officer, described the opportunity to me, “The New York Times has cornered the market in subscription text news. There is a white space in video news and there is not a video news subscription service of the caliber of CNN+. CNN is the only news organization with the resources, global credibility, and experience in video storytelling to offer a compelling product worth paying for.”

At launch, CNN+ offers an impressive slate of original and exclusive programming. They’ve dedicated roughly $100 million in development and a team of 500 staffers to the product, an investment that the company believes will set it apart from rivals, and compel free viewers to pay $5.99 a month for the enhanced offering.

Interactive innovation

In addition to the daily live shows CNN viewers already know and love, CNN+ adds the news brands’ first interactive streaming programming. For example, “Interview Club” is a service it’s counting on to “give subscribers access to newsmakers like never before.” This offering invites subscribers to submit questions from their computer, tablet or mobile device live or in advance of daily scheduled interviews between CNN’s journalists and newsmakers

“Interview Club fundamentally transforms what it means to become part of the story,” Courtney Coupe, Senior Vice President of Content Strategy and Operations for CNN+, said in a press statement. “Weaving this crucial element of interactivity into the core of CNN+ sets it profoundly apart from anything else that exists in the streaming marketplace.”

Historic depth and cultural relevance

Another attraction (and a first for news streaming apps) is exclusive on-demand access to more than a thousand hours from the library of CNN Original Series, CNN Films, and CNN Special Reports. This positions CNN+ to be a one-stop destination to access Emmy Award-winning titles and 40 years of history as told by CNN.

But CNN+ isn’t just opening the archives. Another selling point is the production of Pop Docs. These premium documentary specials, focused on pop culture stories, are more than an attempt to tap into our collective Zeitgeist. They are a part of the eclectic content arsenal CNN+ is counting on to expand its audience beyond die-hard news fans (the median age of a CNN viewer hovers around 64) and engage cord-cutting Millennials.

“With CNN+, we are expanding the reach and scope of the CNN brand and delivering additive content to our fans,” Peterson explains. “Offering content exclusive to CNN+ gives them something valuable worthy of pay.” The focus, he adds, is “global news highlighting our global resources around the world.”

Subscribe now

The monthly subscription package is priced at $5.99 (the same amount Fox News charges for Fox Nation, which launched in 2018). CNN+ is also offering early subscribers access to the “Deal of a Lifetime,” or 50% off the monthly plan – as long as they remain subscribers.

CNN+ is also revamping its mobile app to remove friction and fuel subscriber numbers. Currently, CNN+ is not a standalone app. It is integrated into the primary CNN app (launched in 2008). It appears as a plus sign that features prominently in the bottom navigation bar to allow easy navigation between platforms.

“The CNN+ logo and experience is also prominently featured on top of the CNN.com homepage for users to access the new streaming platform from CNN.com,” Peterson explains. While a user interface that is essentially a tab on a newly updated CNN app means more clicks, there are advantages to providing subscribers CNN+ and TVE (TV Everywhere) access. “We are working to make this the best experience for our customers, and part of that is featuring all CNN content within one CNN app so we can limit any potential customer confusion.”

This and other perks pave the way for CNN+ to achieve what Andrew Morse, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer of CNN Worldwide and Head of CNN+, has called a “very ambitious but achievable subscriber target.” While Morse doesn’t disclose the exact figure, he has hinted that a bundled offering with HBO Max and Discovery Plus is on the roadmap. The $43-billion combination of Discovery with AT&T’s WarnerMedia will undoubtedly result in a plethora of assets and bundles. The question is: Will audiences pay for it?

It’s tricky to call, particularly when the Corona bump that marked a surge in audience interest in subscription streaming services is ebbing. While the streaming market continues to grow, the pace of that growth has slowed significantly. Last quarterly earnings from most streaming service providers fell short of expectations, and Netflix even reported its lowest year of subscriber growth since 2015.

With CNN+, CNN is making an ambitious premium play in a crowded market. However, its investment in new interactive offerings, as well as the decision to offer a deep archive may put it in a class of its own in a sea of streaming apps.

Featured Post | Innovation

Social audio brings NPR new, engaged audiences—and much more

March 10, 2022 Jessica Patterson – Independent Media Reporter

Social audio, which came to prominence with the now eerily-quiet Clubhouse, took off during the pandemic. A slew of competitors has emerged during the past 24 months. And just this week, Amazon joined the market with Amp. The company’s pitch is that the new audio app allows users to become live radio DJs, curate playlists, and talk to listeners and guests.

NPR is no stranger to live radio. The Washington-based non-profit media organization hosts two flagship news broadcasts: Morning Edition and All Things Considered. And, in 2020, more people than ever before were consuming NPR content through their website, radio, apps, live streaming, and smart devices, according to Nieman Lab, which pinned its audience around 57 million.

For Matt Adams, engagement editor + social audio at NPR, moving into social audio spaces made sense because it allowed them to meet audiences where they are. Audio also clearly plays to the strengths of their radio roots—but offers added benefits. And, unlike live video, which may take a while to set up or look a certain way, Adams explained, social audio can be set up in minutes. “This is like, get on your Twitter app. You start it. And then you’re just in a conversation. It’s very quick and easy.”

NPR has been doing Twitter Spaces for a year. Adams says that its first Spaces was with the Code Switch team about their fellowship. “I thought it would be a great way to get people who are interested in applying to that fellowship to ask questions and get answers for it,” he said.

And from there, Adams started to experiment. What’s Next: An NPR Conversation Series ran two or three Spaces every day for a week. NPR and member stations would invite their audiences to join on various topics including kids and COVID, climate change, The Supreme Court, and Indigenous community coverage.

Get feedback

Social audio is a great tool for digital content companies to connect with and expand audiences. Adams says it clearly offers a quick and easy way to talk to their social audience. “What I think is cool is it’s we’re not speaking at them; we’re speaking with them. We can bring them on stage and get their questions and thoughts.”

One of the Spaces that worked really well in the What’s Next series, Adams says, was a conversation about the housing market. “There was a lot of back and forth about, how do you buy a house now? Why is the housing market so wild out there? How do you figure it out?” Adams said.

Find new audiences

While engaging with current fans is important, a big goal for a lot of digital content companies is to attract new and younger audiences. Adams believes social audio offers a way to do just that. In fact, over the last year, Twitter Spaces has introduced new audiences to NPR.

One way is through audience referrals. As companies invite speakers to social audio spaces, their followers are notified that there’s a Space happening. When NPR Weekend Edition host Scott Simon interviewed Matthew McConaughey, they did it on Spaces. And that brought Matthew McConaughey‘s fans to NPR’s Space. “They might not follow NPR, they might not even listen to NPR, they might just be there because they’re Matthew McConaughey fans,” Adams said. “But maybe we pick up some new followers… and that’s key.”

“It’s a great way to just interact with people that you might not be able to interact with otherwise. I think that’s very cool.”

Find new content

Adams said that NPR’s social audio spaces have also sparked content and story ideas from the audience. “Sometimes they’ve said, ‘I think you should be thinking about this or doing that. The host’s like, ‘it’s a good idea. We should think about that or add that to our coverage.’”

NPR has opted to record some of their social audio spaces and later make them downloadable—or even broadcast them on air. They have also transcribed their Twitter Spaces into stories that get page views also grow audiences. All of these tactics allow them to better leverage what might be a one time live-only event in a variety of ways, and to reach broader audiences.

Where Adams has seen social audio really work is for trending topics. They can quickly produce Twitter Spaces to discuss current events and issues, like Ukraine, Russia, or the State of the Union Address.

Listen and learn

As Amazon jumps on the bandwagon this month, it’s clear that social audio isn’t going away soon. And, with potential options to monetize it in the future – from in-app tipping features, to sponsorship, to tickets for premium events – it might become a revenue stream as well.

Social audio offers Zoom-weary audiences the intimacy of podcasts but also the ability to participate in discussions, be brought up on the stage and ask questions directly to speakers in real time.

It is interesting the way in which live social audio experiences mirror live radio, but also how they differ. Unlike pre-recorded segments or podcasts, live offers real time audience engagement. But, as the name would imply, social takes it even further. Audience members can “see” each other. They are able to react even if they don’t speak up. And they feel easily empowered to engage. For younger audiences, who may have never listened to terrestrial or even satellite radio, this new format offers the ease and comfort of social media. But for all audiences, engagement and interaction can clearly reach a new level altogether.

Adams saw this firsthand when NPR hosted a Twitter Space based on a story about college students’ experience during the pandemic. Adams asked the reporter to bring her sources into a Space for a discussion. “And then all of the college students in the audience were joining and then jumping up to talk about what was happening at their school and what they were going through,” he said. “There was just this big conversation between the sources and the audience, and we were just directing traffic. It was awesome. It was not what you would do on the radio.”

Featured Post | Innovation

Can newspapers ever be “essential” apps on smartphones?

March 3, 2022 Chris M. Sutcliffe – Independent Media Reporter

TikTok, the insanely popular social video app, comes pre-installed on a number of Samsung smartphones. That’s hardly surprising. Samsung and TikTok have a longstanding relationship, with the app finding a place on Samsung smart TVs back in December of 2020. It’s a mutually beneficial partnership: The hardware manufacturer rides the wave of the app’s rapid growth in popularity, the app expands its audience, and the pair have access to a new suite of data between them.

What is surprising, though, is how deeply embedded TikTok appears to be in Samsung hardware. As reported by Screenrant, and as pointed out in Samsung forums, the app is not just pre-installed on Samsung devices. It is in fact deemed “essential.” That means it can’t be uninstalled completely, on par with the Camera app. While workarounds do exist, the message is clear: Samsung dearly wants its users use that TikTok app on its smartphones.

As Screenrant’s Nadeem Sarwar points out, there must be a tangible benefit for both parties – even if that comes at a storage and data cost to the user: “How TikTok is an essential app is unclear. But to the average smartphone user, it is nothing more than a cash-grab scheme between the world’s most popular app and the world’s largest smartphone seller.”

While the partnership between Samsung and TikTok is pertinent for media companies, it is far from the only pre-installed or essential app tie-ups of the past few years. The PlayStation 5 media remote comes with physical buttons for launching Netflix, Disney Plus, Spotify, and YouTube. Samsung also includes Facebook as one of its essential pre-installed apps, which adds fuel to the fire of user accusations of bloatware.

But what does that mean for media companies, news publishers whose apps are not considered essential in their own right? And should those companies be considering pursuing similar exclusive partnerships with hardware manufacturers?

Apps strong together

Newspapers do have a presence as pre-installed apps to some extent already. Apple’s News app has been pre-installed on iPhones for some years now, itself the successor to its Newsstand app. That has been further developed with the implementation of News+, which boasts any number of publishers by now. That means that users, at least in theory, have a pre-installed and essential app through which they can reach newspapers on iOS (provided they agree to Apple’s terms, which have been… tumultuous).

In practice, however, it isn’t the same at all. Access via an aggregator is not the same as having a dedicated app, for both publishers and audiences. Readly, Apple News+, and many of the other aggregators are not focused on media brands creating a direct relationship with audiences. They’re about revenue, not engagement.

Worse still, this bundling robs publishers of the ability to iterate and experiment with an app they own and operate. Mathias Douchet, director of product at The Telegraph, says that freedom is the single most important point when it comes to establishing long-term user relationships:

“Even with a continuous improvement cycle, it is important to celebrate your success as it happens. With the new digital edition app, three out of four users are coming back daily. This is even higher among core subscribers at 95%.”

So even when publishers do have a presence on essential apps, it doesn’t necessarily replicate the benefits of the partnership between TikTok and Samsung. It does not serve the same purpose, nor does it necessarily benefit the user.

Beat the bloat

So why does it matter to publishers if their apps do not appear as pre-installed solutions on smartphone hardware? The answer is that in the battle for attention those pre-installed solutions allow some apps to cheat. They leave the starting line before the firing gun has gone off. This puts the rest of apps – newspapers and magazines included – at a disadvantage when it comes to audience attention.

A good rule of thumb is that unless your app appears in a users’ top five most-used apps, they aren’t visiting it every day. That in turn means that users are unlikely to develop the habit of opening a news app regularly, which creates fewer touch points with your subscriber.

According to research from App Annie in its State of Mobile 2021 report, news publishers very rarely appear in the top five most used apps on users’ smartphones. The few that do typically are state broadcasters like the BBC. The top two most used apps among Gen X in the UK are BBC Weather and BBC News respectively. No news apps appear in the top five most used apps for either Gen Z or Millennials. In the US, the only news app to appear in any of the cohorts’ most used apps is The Weather Channel.

Preferential treatment

There is a self-perpetuating cycle to the issue of pre-installed apps. They get chosen as partners by hardware manufacturers because they are popular; and they become more popular because they are pre-installed. By contrast news apps, which barely account for more than 6% of time spent in apps in total, barely factor in and are unlikely to be considered essential in terms of user priority.

A second factor is that news apps come with political and emotional baggage, which apps like TikTok are unlikely to have. It is unlikely given accusations of bloat and the need to work out partnership deals that any smartphone manufacturer would seek to force users to keep a particular outlets’ news app on their device. It is more unlikely still that they would do so given that accusations of bias and monopolistic practices around big tech companies are rampant.

Consider U2’s “Songs of Innocence” debacle, in which the band and Apple received backlash for distributing the band’s album for free onto people’s devices. Now add in the current supercharged political climate and consumer’s polarized position on news brands. Things could get complicated fast.

Apps, particularly on smartphones, remain a key part of many newspapers’ and magazines’ strategies. Users spend more time on their phones than with television, and time spent in apps made up a significant proportion of that. But despite the value they create for media companies and their audiences, it is unlikely that hardware manufacturers consider them as big a draw for their consumers as entertainment apps.

So, if newspapers want to be included in a pre-installed app on smartphones, maybe they should invest in dancing lessons for their journalists. Because, for better or worse, making their apps a fixture of users’ mobile diet may not come as easily as negotiating a pre-install position.

Innovation | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Three key trends in digital media product development

March 2, 2022 Chris Hansen, SVP Media and Information Services – 3Pillar Global

Digital media companies face fierce competition for the eyes, ears, and wallets of customers. But those who succeed have the potential to win big. With the rise of new content platforms and the emerging promises of web3, media companies have to evolve faster than ever to deliver the right experiences to the right people at the right time.

The pace of critical transformation has been accelerated by the global pandemic. Audiences have always been fickle media consumers. However, Covid-19 drove a massive, rapid change in consumption habits. People have become more demanding and expect better digital experiences to meet those demands.

In conversations with media executives, we’re hearing three major trends that savvy organizations should consider before launching new initiatives.

Data-centricity

The first trend is around data-centricity. Companies are awash in data, and the differences between sinking and swimming hinge on developing a strategy that leverages their customer (reader/viewer/subscriber) data. By gathering all of the information they have—from multiple first-party sources, as well as financial and operational data—into a single repository (which may be a data lake, data warehouse, or other cloud-based platform) companies can effectively manage and use their data.

With a data platform in place, organizations can begin to unlock insights from every angle. Internally, the data can be used to aggregate customer-level insights to create models that achieve acquisition, growth, and retention goals.

Externally, the insights can be used to develop better user experiences that incorporate learnings from across the customer journey. This enables media companies to provide unique experiences that align with the brand. Data also allows products and services to operate more effectively, particularly personalization, recommendations, and the like.

Improving customer experience

The next trend is a focus on providing optimal customer experiences. According to McKinsey:

“The CX programs of the future will be holistic, predictive, precise, and clearly tied to business outcomes. Evidence suggests that the advantages will be substantial for companies that start building the capabilities, talent, and organizational structure needed for this transition. Those that stick with the traditional systems will be forced to play catch-up in the years to come.”

One of the most effective ways media companies can improve the customer experience is through personalization. Countless studies have shown that personalization not only drives better engagement for media brands, it is welcomed—even demanded—by consumers. As audiences continue to expect more relevant experiences, media companies require more proficiency in data science to deliver on those expectations.

Diversifying revenue streams

The final trend is the disruption and diversification of revenue streams. In the past two decades, media companies have built strong digital products and services yet relied on traditional monetization paradigms such as advertising and indirect distribution channels. However, ad-based business models are no longer a sufficient primary revenue strategy for many media companies. This has triggered a shift to monetize their content in other ways, particularly through direct audience-based revenue.

Take The New York Times, which has focused on subscriptions as the key driver of growth. They leverage news, as well as additional content and channels (including cooking, audio, and games) to drive engagement and ultimately readership and subscriptions as well.

Disney has been a master at diversifying revenue streams. If you merely look at their Star Wars franchise, Disney has taken advantage of opportunities to cultivate new fans, deepen customer experiences, and generate new revenue streams. They’ve licensed the brand to Lego to produce Star Wars-based kits; built out new in-person experiences like Galaxy’s Edge at Disney World in Orlando; and added new fans and their subscription revenues by producing the Mandalorian series exclusively for their streaming service Disney+. Disney proves that quality content leveraged omnichannel drives business outcomes. Last quarter, their parks business reported a $2.45B operating profit and streaming added 11.8 million new subscribers.

The future: bumpy but bright

The evolution of digital media may be bumpy, in part because there’s an array of forces at play, such as developments in the web3 sphere, like the metaverse, NFTs, and blockchain, among others. Despite that, we expect the ventures that survive will continue to recognize the primacy of their audiences, by keeping an eye on and leveraging data-derived insights.

As digital businesses diversify their revenue streams, and adopt and adapt to new distribution and delivery mechanisms, the players must think differently and broaden their perspective and knowledge of their customers. Those that invest the time and effort to foster innovation will be the ones that thrive, no matter what changes come their way.

How NYMag, NYT and Atlantic are leveling-up their game strategy

February 24, 2022 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Independent Media Reporter

Last month’s Wordle acquisition by The New York Times hit headlines inside and outside the media world. It serves as a useful reminder of the value of simplicity in creating a successful game. However, it also reinforced the NYT’s ambition to be the destination for people spending time online.

The subscription behemoth isn’t the only publisher looking to level up in games. As the pressure to gain and retain subscribers grows, publishers are using puzzles not just to build habit, but to open a two-way relationship with readers – and their friends.

A move to daily games

Jonathan Knight, The New York Times’ General Manager of Games, sees a correlation between daily engagement with the games and long term retention. “We see it as a great diversion from the news, when the news can often be quite rough,” he said. “We have a lot of people who are coming to read the news, and then the games are the ‘dessert’ at the end of the meal.”

Sensing an opportunity with a new wave of daily puzzle enthusiasts, New York Magazine announced a new crossword in January – with a twist. The 10×10 puzzle, housed under the Vulture brand, is entirely focused on entertainment and pop-culture.

“We explored a few different avenues. But eventually we realized that what made the most sense was to start with something we already had,”said Vulture Editor Neil Janowitz. The 10×10 format is a relatively digestible puzzle that can typically be solved in under six minutes. But it also sits comfortably alongside the flagship New York crossword.

As the biggest site in the magazine’s network, Vulture made the most sense to house the new puzzle. “There’s a clarity and simplicity to making it a pop culture puzzle that everybody can immediately understand,” Janowitz added. “You can put 10 crosswords side by side, and you can clearly pick out the one that Vulture published, because it feels like us.”

The Atlantic launched its mini daily crossword puzzle in October 2018, ahead of the publisher’s wider digital subscription drive. This one gets a little bigger and more challenging as the week goes on. “In addition to all the journalism we provide, we were drawn to the idea of giving people a moment of whimsy,” explained Executive Editor Adrienne LaFrance.

A gateway to subscriptions

The New York Times has taken a layered approach to its puzzles in order to entice players. Their ‘The Mini’ crossword is free to play for everyone. But if a user wants to be a part of the leaderboard and compete with friends, that’s a subscriber benefit. “That’s a great example of how we’ve managed to build a huge audience with daily engagement on a game that has a couple of layers to it,” Knight explained. Similarly the Spelling Bee word game has higher ranks of the game that are only accessible to subscribers.

The hope is that newly-acquired Wordle will introduce even more people to the NYT’s stable of games. “We want more people spending more time with the New York Times, and [the Wordle acquisition] plays a key role in that,” Knight commented.

Knight is committed to keeping the popular word game free on the site. They have no plans worked out for any other layers to it yet. But looking at where the subscriber walls fall on other NYT games, it is not inconceivable that leaderboards or additional levels could be added to Wordle as a subscriber-only perk.

The Atlantic’s crossword is also free to play. LaFrance sees this approach as habit-building. “If people are developing a regular relationship through the puzzle, meaning they’re coming back every day, these puzzles become a ritual,” she said. “It’s useful because people are going from the puzzle to reading. So it means developing a deeper relationship, not just with the puzzle, but with The Atlantic as a whole.”

Both the Vulture 10×10 and New York Magazine’s other puzzles sit outside the paywall. Readers can play as many as they want, and will only hit the metered paywall when they try to read an article. It’s an experiment for now, with the purpose of pulling new readers in by building habits.

Beyond puzzles: merch and newsletters

Puzzles may be an excellent way to keep people coming back to publisher sites on a regular basis. But the gap between a habitual puzzler and a reader still remains. For some publishers like the NYT, this isn’t a problem. Their separate games subscription means that they still monetize that audience, even if some of them never interact with the news product.

“We think of the news as the sun in our solar system,” explained Knight. “But increasingly—with cooking, with games, with Wirecutter, with audio—there are these planets that rotate around that sun, and that is an essential part of our strategy.”

However, for other publishers who haven’t put a price on the puzzles, attention is turning to ways to bring regular gamers more fully into the fold.

The Atlantic is trying a different approach to bridge the gap between player and reader. Two months ago, the publisher launched The Good Word. Crossword Editor Caleb Madison does a weekly deep dive into a favorite word or phrase from that week’s crossword; what it means, where it comes from, and what led him to “enshrine this bit of language in the grid”.

“We love the idea of creating a closer and more direct connection between Caleb and the people who are fans of the puzzle,” LaFrance said. As well as being able to collect details, the newsletter serves as a useful tool to expose puzzlers to The Atlantic’s journalism. The bottom of each edition is carefully utilized to promote popular stories and events.

For these reasons, The Good Word is one of the newsletters The Atlantic is keeping free. “It’s a useful entry point into The Atlantic,” LaFrance explained. “There may be people who play the puzzle and aren’t deeply familiar with The Atlantic and start reading. In fact, we’ve seen that the puzzle is a real portal to the rest of our journalism.”

The NYT spotted a further monetization opportunity from its puzzles: merchandise. Fans can buy ‘Mini’ crossword baby onesies or Spelling Bee tote bags. The Spelling Bee merchandise, which was released late last year, immediately sold out, according to Knight.

Humanizing the games

For all three publishers, centering the puzzle’s creators is a key part of their strategies. The Atlantic’s Madison fronts both the crossword and the associated newsletter. Both New York Magazine and the New York Times have bylines on their various crosswords.

“I think the idea that there’s a human behind the game is really important,” said Knight. “You really sense you’re trying to solve a puzzle that some other human has put out there for you to solve versus just playing against the machine.”

New York Magazine has seen puzzle creators become “puzzle influencers” in the audiences they build. “There are a ton of constructors out there who have personalities. If you are a devoted puzzler, you have your favorite constructors,” Director of Editorial Operations Mariam Aldhahi explained. New York Crossword author Matt Gaffney has an established audience, and Stella Zawistowski and Malaika Handa who work on the Vulture 10×10 are now building a following.

“For us, it was about finding constructors that we think brought the right voice and tone to our puzzles,” said Aldhahi. “There is an audience around specific [puzzle creators], and people will go where their favorite constructors are.”

During the pandemic, The Atlantic introduced a social “Play Together” feature to its crossword. This allowed puzzlers to invite friends to help solve the crossword together each day. But it is more than just a nice bonding opportunity for friends in lockdown. Being exposed to The Atlantic’s work by collaborating on a puzzle is the ultimate in referral by stealth.

LaFrance noted that social play was something the team were keen on introducing, even without the pandemic. “In print, you have the puzzle on the kitchen counter and someone else wanders in and works at it for a bit… so I think people are familiar with this experience of collaboratively doing puzzles,” she said.

Collaboration is a feature the Vulture 10×10 has also built into its gameplay. The team were inspired by the social nature of Wordle, and how many people share their results online. “I have a group chat with friends and we text each other our Wordles in the morning,” said Janowitz. “Clearly there is some amount of interest in comparing, and the bet being maybe collaborating and doing these things together.”

Time to level up

The race to reader revenue shows no signs of slowing. It is evident from each of these publishers that attention is now turning to more sophisticated ways of engagement and habit-building.

But simple games are no longer enough. Offering games is not a strategy in itself. To fully maximize the gaming investment, publishers need to find ways to bring regular puzzlers into a deeper relationship, whether that be through newsletters, social features, or additional layers to the games themselves.

Two years, nine updates

Agile print

Ask what problem you are solving

Be realistic

The elegant exit

We’re just getting started

Find your place in streaming

Focus on the consumer to improve what’s ahead

About the author

Space(s) for transparency and engagement

Attracting and engaging audiences

Adoption, addiction, affection

Lessons learned

Creating and distributing the news: then vs. now

Data, data, everywhere. Data, data, time to share.

WaPo 360 and the engineering experience

WaPo 360 and the business-user experience

WaPo 360 and the reader experience

A financial case

Creating a more affordable product

An audience-centric approach

A bracing shot of news

Is an app the perfect outreach product?

3 considerations for your ecommerce strategy

1. Changing technologies

2. Culture and content fit

3. Merchant diversification

Maximize your ecommerce potential

About the Author

Audience building

The sound of success

Social audio hosting

Spaces have potential

Interactive innovation

Historic depth and cultural relevance

Subscribe now

Get feedback

Find new audiences

Find new content

Listen and learn

Apps strong together

Beat the bloat

Preferential treatment

Data-centricity

Improving customer experience

Diversifying revenue streams

The future: bumpy but bright

A move to daily games

A gateway to subscriptions

Beyond puzzles: merch and newsletters

Humanizing the games

The power of sharing

Time to level up