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Across country, local online news succeeds without scale
"Since time immemorial (or at least the mid-’90s), tech and media companies believed that if you rolled up hundreds of tiny hyper-local news sites it would make a boffo business. So many tried and failed, from AOL’s DigitalCities to Backfence to Microsoft Sidewalk to AOL again with Patch in the 2000s. The lesson again and again was that hyper-locals just don’t scale because then they become a chain, not unlike the newspaper chains that have hit the skids over the past decade."
LION Publishers board Chairman Dylan Smith of the Tucson Sentinel, Barry Parr of Coastsider and others tackled the issue of "scale" on a MediaShift.org podcast last week.
Meanwhile, Michele McLellan reports at Knight Digital Media Center on the numerous local independent online news sites that have shown "staying power" - still in business 10-plus years later.
Sense of mission boosts morale at local news nonprofits
Poynter uses The Lens in New Orleans, led by LION member Steve Beatty, as an example of how employee morale at local nonprofit news organizations can be boosted by a strong sense of mission.
Also at Poynter, a rundown on free tech tools available to nonprofit newsrooms.
Publishers' uneasy dance with big distribution platforms
What should media companies do in a world controlled by giant platforms? Experts are wary of "platforms as publishers."
Here's a look at the "distributed content landscape."
Facebook's Instant Articles are being shared three times more than regular links, but the company is considering changes in how advertising works on them because partner publishers aren't happy with the revenue being produced. Meanwhile, Facebook has launched its own Twitter-like app for following the work of publishers. Facebook and the media have an increasingly landlord-tenant style relationship.
Publishers are "underwhelmed" by Apple's version of Instant Articles, too.
Related:
Tech is eating media. Now what? (No, media needs tech, not cynicism.)
Best practices for newsrooms setting up social distribution partnerships.
Death by a thousand likes: How Facebook and Twitter are killing the open web.
The growing issues posed by programmatic advertising
Programmatic advertising technology, which allows advertisers to follow "targeted" customers around the web, helped fuel a drop in online advertising rates and a race for page views. Some now see the complex system supporting the practice as a bubble waiting to burst.
Among the issues, online ads no one sees, and "bot traffic" that is an increasing concern of ad buyers.
Some publishers have already decided to forego programmatic advertising and only use ads they've sold themselves.
What if publishers served ads, not JavaScript?
Related:
Five things holding back programmatic advertising.
Six ways small businesses can take better advantage of programmatic ad buying.
Think you’re reading the news for free? New research shows you’re likely paying with your privacy.
Facebook and Amazon have a lot of my data, but they don’t know how to use it.
Mobile is driving the decline of traditional ad tech.
Google debuts programmatic ad sales for native, mobile video.
News About Local Independent News Sites
CROWDFUNDING: LION member Denise Lockwood was successful in her effort to crowdfund a $3,690 investigative reporting project exploring illnesses in the neighborhood around a Wisconsin coal plant.
BRADY'S NEW GIG: LION member Jim Brady, publisher of Philadelphia's Billy Penn, brings a new media perspective to ESPN public editor role.
AD BLOCKING WEBINAR: LION's free monthly webinar for members in November featured Travis Smith of Hop Studios talking about what ad blocking technology means for local independent online news publishers.
REGIONAL SCALE: The "Tap Into" chain of local news sites is attempting to scale with a franchise model in two neighboring states.
Tools and Tips: Advertising and Revenue
SPONSORED CONTENT: How content has transformed marketing and PR. How the Google gods brought content marketing to every business. How native ads can stop the ad blocking apocalypse. Mobile best practices for native advertising. Native advertising comprised 18 percent of The New York Times' digital advertising revenue in Q3. And the success of political native advertising could hinge on Buzzfeed's experiments with it.
AD BLOCKING: Ad-block surge challenges digital publishers. Debunking ad blocking's big myths. To fight ad blocking, build better ads. Meet Ad Replacer, a new ad blocker that switches out ads with content. And after a year, Google's effort to get ad-avoidant site visitors to pay flounders.
VIDEO: Auto-play videos catching on beyond Facebook. Some say a big part of Facebook's explosive video growth has come from "freebooting" - pirated content. What is VAST? And how are video ad standards changing?
MEMBERSHIP: How Harvard Business Review increased its registered users by 20 percent.
FOUNDATION FUNDING: Imperfect together? With another flap, more questions about philanthropy and journalism.
PAYWALLS: News paywalls: Consumer views on paying for content.
SOCIAL MEDIA: Community management extends far beyond social media.
TIME-BASED ADS: Time well-spent? Inside the Financial Times' time-based advertising sales effort.
EMAIL NEWSLETTERS: Email is the best way to reach millennials. Or is it?
LESS IS MORE?: To improve ad quality, this sports publisher cut 35% of its Web impressions.
Tools and Tips: Journalism and Technology
ENGAGEMENT: Engagement is relational, not transactional. Why has trust in the media declined? Why building online communities strengthens journalism. And the art of cinema journalism.
INSTAGRAM: How to tell powerful narratives on Instagram. Why Instagram captions are the new blogging.
BILINGUAL: What the Center for Investigative Reporting has learned about Spanish and bilingual investigative reporting.
FREELANCE: The nine most important takeaways from Freelancers Union’s annual survey.
SOCIAL MEDIA: News should be social (and here’s how to teach that). Writing for social media: a class for beginning journalists. How to do social journalism and overcome ‘platform anxiety.’ Even in long writing, make your central point tweetworthy. Getting it right when you’re caught in a Twitter storm. How people who don’t work in news consume their news. National Geographic is better on social media than BuzzFeed — or any other publisher, for that matter. And defeated by social media, CNN overhauls iReport.
FACT CHECKING: The four phases of the Internet falling for a hoax. A new fact-checking website has launched examining claims about the black community in public debate.
MESSAGING APPS: A new Tow Center report looks at the future of chat apps for news.
RESEARCH: ‘Talk to Shirley’ and nine other tips for reporting and research.
VIRTUAL REALITY: New Tow Center report: Virtual Reality Journalism. News outlets left and right (and up, down, and center) are embracing virtual reality technology. Google Cardboard: Novelty or useful? Google Cardboard’s New York Times experiment just hooked a generation on VR. New York Times says virtual reality app was its most successful mobile launch. And a fellow at Reynolds Journalism Institute has launched a database of 3-D technologies.
DATA: How researchers created a journalism tool by scraping data from science journals.
VIDEO: 'If you have a phone, you have an opportunity': Digital video is driving diversity.
FOIA: FOIA activity: 10 new procedural or substantive decisions.
HEALTH CARE: Today’s federal agencies are ‘highly message-controlled.’ Here’s what that means for health reporting.
SEO: What does Yahoo’s new Google partnership mean for SEO’s future?
LEGAL TIPS: Can I say that? A legal primer for journalists.
STORY COMMENTS: Meet “dialogue,” the new front in the Internet commenting wars.
MAPPING: Quartz to open source two mapping tools.
LANGUAGE: Words journalists write that no one ever says, 2015 edition.
Industry News
NEWSPAPERS: Newspaper companies have a funny idea of 'progress.' The vanishing newspaper, updated. And what would a time traveler tell media companies?
DFM: Digital First Media closes design center, lays off sports staff in Connecticut. It continues a trend of expense cuts at the hedge fund-owned company.
TRIBUNE: Tribune Publishing approves buyouts for 7% of its 7,000 eligible employees.
PITTSBURGH: Pennsylvania's Trib Total Media lays off 153.
PHILADELPHIA: Philly journalists rally to help laid-off colleagues get hired.
GANNETT: Journal Media CEO gets $4.56 million for less than one year of work before packaging company for sale to Gannett.
POYNTER: Poynter cuts budget deficit by 35%, reports $2.26 million operating loss for 2014.
HOME PAGES: How the Guardian is building a homepage for the social media age.
SLACK: How Storyful is turning Slack into an extension of its newswire.
SNAPCHAT: Snapchat triples video traffic as it closes the gap with Facebook.
PINTEREST: New Pinterest technology will let users scour site for objects like those they highlight in photos.
TWITTER: Twitter’s heart hits the wrong beat. Here’s the data that shows why Twitter switched to hearts from stars.
MOBILE: Mobile drives Canada's programmatic growth.
GEORGIA: Georgia News Lab looks to fill a void for newsrooms.
MILWAUKEE: In Milwaukee, fellowships fuel investigative reporting.
Is Your LION Publishers Membership Up for Renewal?
For many of our LION Publishers members, it's time to renew! Your membership includes participation in the LION Publishers Den on Facebook, networking and support from fellow LION publishers, our new newsletter, discounted rates on media liability and directors and officers insurance and more.
Plus, being a member gives you access to a members-only rate to the LION Summit – a savings of up to $175 compared to the non-member rate. If your membership is due for renewal, please go to www.lionpublishers.com/members/dues to submit your payment. Those who opt for multi-year membership save, and easy, secure payment options are available via credit card or through Paypal. (Not sure when your membership expires? You can look it up easily on LIONPublishers.com.)
Thanks to our current members who have already renewed! |
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