Fred Santarpia, Cond\u00e9 Nast\u2019s chief digital officer,\u00a0joined Digiday+ members to talk about the publishing giant\u2019s paywall strategy, its plans to push further into e-commerce and why publishers should work together more and \u201chave some fun.\u201d Lightly edited excerpts appear below.<\/p>\n
Here are Santarpia\u2019s views on:<\/p>\n
Paywalls<\/b>
\n\u201cI think [more paywalls for Cond\u00e9 Nast titles] are highly likely. We believe much of what we do at Cond\u00e9 Nast is highly differentiated and worth paying for in different models. \u2026 I think the \u2018pivot to paywalls\u2019 is coming back because there is a resurgence in the value attributed to quality journalism. I think the volatility in the political landscape has really pushed that, and people are looking for \u2018trusted\u2019 sources. It also is not easy living on advertising alone, as many media companies are realizing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Distributed content<\/b>
\n\u201cThe web is a fragmented place. We aren\u2019t going to be able to change the physics of the web, so I fully expect we will continue to explore native content experiences on many different platforms, without over-reliance on any of them. It\u2019s much easier to go where the consumer is than to force them to come to you. That said, the more we are investing in deep storytelling and journalism, the more users will naturally seek out our brands on our owned properties as well.\u201d<\/p>\n