Platforms and publishers have a long and complicated history. Sometimes platforms take from publishers, such as the concern about Google stealing publisher traffic. Other times they can give back — most famously might be Google’s Digital News Innovation Fund, which recently wrapped up six rounds of funding...
Earlier this month, a company called Mogul News launched a news app that curates article content from three media outlets: Bloomberg, The Financial Times, and The Economist. If you were to subscribe to each of these publications separately, it would add up to at least...
The ad blocking controversy is still fresh, and now publishers have to contend with yet another salvo from Google Chrome. The next version of the browser, Chrome 76—scheduled for a public release in late July—will introduce a set of changes in its API implementation that...
For the foreseeable future, publishers are pinning their hopes on digital subscription, on reigniting the direct relationship they initially lost in the initial pile into digital publishing. A recent study from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that 69% of US and European...
It’s no secret that many publishers struggle to find a sustainable business model that will help them generate sufficient revenue and stay afloat. Banner ads and clickbait techniques have become a thing of the past, and the financial burden is not getting any lighter. Luckily,...
The new tools promise long-awaited support for subscription-focused publishers, but is it too little too late? Facebook have announced that they are expanding support for subscriptions in Instant Articles to ‘all eligible publishers’, following 18 months of testing with over forty publishers worldwide. This means...
US business and technology magazine Fortune has become the latest prominent title to put up a paywall, as publishers double down on reader revenue amid widespread ad decline in the industry. It follows the sale of the magazine to Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon by Meredith...
2018 was unquestionably the year of the paywall. Well-known publications from Vanity Fair to the New Statesman decided that paywalls were the best way for them to build relationships with their audience in an increasingly tough ad environment, with Condé Nast announcing just a few...
Reuters’ Journalism, Media and Technology Trends and Predictions 2019 report predicts that subscription and membership are going to be the key priorities for the news industry going forward. More than 50% of the executives surveyed for the report said they would be focusing on subscription...
The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has released a new report today on trends in adoption of paywalls by news organizations. The report, Pay Models for Online News in the US and Europe: 2019 Update, examines the offerings of over 200 leading news...
We know that more and more publishers are focusing on reader revenue strategies this year (52% of news executives state subscriptions will be their main revenue focus in 2019). That means paywall strategies are often being rethought, from The New York Times ending the Incognito loophole with its paywall or Neue Zürcher Zeitung...
A Swiss digital news publisher has found their conversion rate of registered users to paying subscribers has increased by five times since they have altered their approach from building paywalls to creating "dynamic pay gates". Since early 2015 the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), a Swiss German-language...
January 4, 2019 marked the two-year anniversary for when everyone briefly thought that Twitter co-founder and Medium CEO Ev Williams had lost his marbles. Early that morning in 2017, a third of Medium’s staff had been let go. A few hours later, Williams posted an...
Digital publisher TechCrunch—which specializes in tech news, reviews and profiling startups—recently launched its first premium offering, Extra Crunch, “an additional layer of content, coverage, product and events-based offerings for our most regular and engaged readers.” As publishers increasingly put their content behind paywalls, TechCrunch has...
Learning from the magazine market sectors that pay, why we should hold off judgement on the 50% Apple subscription deal, and more... It’s too early to judge if this Apple is rotten The latest scandal in the fraught platform-publisher relationship is this week’s revelation that...
The Telegraph had earlier set a goal of reaching 3 million registered users by the end of 2018; it beat the target by half a million and is confident of reaching the 10 million milestone in a few years. A key component of the strategy that...
Avid readers of Vogue, GQ, Bon Appétit and any of Condé Nast's other publications now need to prepare to pay up; the iconic publisher will place all its titles behind paywalls by the end of this year. Three Condé Nast titles—the New Yorker, Vanity Fair...
Publishers are challenged by the dominance of platform intermediaries in content distribution and advertising revenue. Those facing these challenges are looking to offset losses by broadening their revenue diversification through subscriptions and new product offerings. In fact, according to Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report: Journalism, Media,...
The last few months haven’t exactly been rosy for the publishing industry. Whether it was Verizon seeking a $4.6 billion write-down on its AOL and Yahoo acquisitions, the fire sale of Mic, or the layoffs at digital native companies like BuzzFeed and Vox, there have...
Back in November, I interviewed Brian Alvey, a web entrepreneur who, among other things, led the team that designed the iPad newspaper app The Daily. For those who don’t remember, The Daily was a high profile collaboration between Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs. It debuted...
