Saturday, December 15, 2012

New York Times set to launch mini-books for tablets

TabTimes reporting:
Call them "e-singles" "mini-books" or shorter read digital books designed for the tablets and e-book readers.
The New York Times is experimenting with selling the new digital books with content that can read in a few hours or less.
”Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek,” the first mini-book, will go on sale Monday, according to a report by the Associated Press. It will be an 18,000-word piece about skiers caught in an avalanche, written by Times reporter John Branch.
Leveraging the flexibility of digital storage, "Snow Fall," is actually an expanded version of an upcoming piece planned for Monday's newspaper.
AP says Snow Fall will sell for $2.99 in Amazon.com's Kindle store, Apple's iBooks, and on Barnes & Noble's Nook.
Gerald Marzorati, the Times' editor for editorial development, told the AP that his company is betting the new format will make long-form journalism easy to read and reach people who don't visit the Times' website or read the newspaper.
http://tabtimes.com/news/media/2012/12/13/new-york-times-set-launch-mini-books-tablets

Guardian kills its Facebook social reader, regains control over its content

gigaom reporting:
After a year-long experiment that saw its Facebook “social reading” app gain more than six million monthly users — and then lose more than half of those after the network changed the way those apps work — the Guardian has decided to take back control of its content.
A little over a year ago, a big topic of discussion in the newspaper business — apart from the ongoing cataclysmic decline in print advertising revenue, of course — was how to leverage Facebook as a platform for content, and specifically the rise of what were called “social reading” apps, which were like mini-newspapers housed within a Facebook page. The Washington Post and The Guardian were among those who launched these applications, and for a time they drove a substantial amount of traffic, until Facebook changed the way they worked. Now the Guardian has said it is effectively shutting down its app and will be pushing readers from the social network to its website instead, so that it can retain more control over what happens to its content.
The Guardian‘s app now has a large banner ad that says “The Guardian app is changing” and links to a blog post on the newspaper’s website by product manager Anthony Sullivan. In that post, Sullivan notes that the paper launched the social-reading app in November of last year as an experiment in how to use social platforms like Facebook to increase the readership of the Guardian’s content and allow people to share it more easily. Those goals have been achieved, he said, with millions of people — more than six million a month, at the peak usage of the app — engaging with the paper’s stories, many of them outside the Guardian‘s typical demographic:
 ...
Although Sullivan’s post doesn’t go into specifics about why the paper decided to make this shift, there have been a couple of major changes in the way that Facebook handles social-reading apps over the past year, and they almost certainly played a role in changing the Guardian‘s mind about the benefits of allowing the giant social network to have so much control over its content. The biggest change was to alter how frequently links to stories from the Guardian and other social-reading apps showed up in the Facebook stream of real-time updates from users, which are all based on what the network calls “frictionless sharing” from apps....
http://gigaom.com/2012/12/13/guardian-kills-its-facebook-social-reader-regains-control-over-its-content/

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Financial Times now giving away free Nexus 7 tablets

TabTimes reporting:
Just weeks after British newspaper The Times started offering subsidized Nexus 7 tablets and The Financial Times has gone one better by offering Google’s tablet for free to print or digital subscribers in the U.S.
The offer, first detailed in the print newspaper today, will be offered to readers signing up for a one-year digital or print subscription and will run until December 17. The deal only applies to Google's 8GB Nexus 7 tablet, which usually retails for $199.
A digital-only subscription to the FT starts at $447 per year, while annual access to both the print and digital editions comes in at $597.
Such news marks the second time a prominent newspaper has offered the Nexus 7 at a discounted rate, following a similar offer from The Times of the UK earlier this month.
http://tabtimes.com/news/media/2012/12/12/financial-times-now-giving-away-free-nexus-7-tablets

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Data Points: Tablet Advertising As publishers' apps proliferate, the use of bells and whistles declines

adweek reporting: Publishers seem to have no end to their appetite for apps. This year through October, 9,125 publication-related apps were released for the iPad, twice the number released in the year-ago period, according to McPheters & Co.’s iMonitor app-tracking service. Hearst led publishers with the most number of apps (89), followed by Time Warner, Condé Nast, Future Media and Bonnier Corp. But as publishers expand to more and more platforms, they’re pulling back on the number of costly and time-consuming enhancements, as are advertisers. That’s unfortunate, since not only readers are more likely to read enhanced ads, they mean more money in publishers' coffers.
See the graphics at
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/data-points-tablet-advertising-145567

Social Media Report 2012: Social Media Comes of Age

nielsenwire reporting:
Social media and social networking are no longer in their infancy. Social media continues to grow rapidly, offering global consumers new and meaningful ways to engage with the people, events and brands that matter to them.  According to Nielsen and NM Incite’s latest Social Media Report, consumers continue to spend more time on social networks than on any other category of sites—roughly 20 percent of their total time online via personal computer (PC), and 30 percent of total time online via mobile.  Additionally, total time spent on social media in the U.S. across PCs and mobile devices increased 37 percent to 121 billion minutes in July 2012, compared to 88 billion in July 2011.
The recent proliferation of mobile devices and connectivity helped fuel the continued growth of social media. While the computer remains as the predominant device for social media access, consumers’ time spent with social media on mobile apps and the mobile web has increased 63 percent in 2012, compared to the same period last year.
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/social-media-report-2012-social-media-comes-of-age/

Study: People Always Shopping, Even If Unaware

MarketingDaily reporting: The so-called “purchase funnel” for consumers is no longer linear, and it no longer stops, thanks to social media. 
According to a new study from the Advertising Research Foundation, nearly one-third of shoppers said social media influenced their brand preference, either by introducing those consumers to brands they were unfamiliar with or changing their opinion of a brand during the shopping process. 
The study also determined that, thanks in part to social media, the purchase process never ends. With constant updates from social networks (including from friends and colleagues who are talking about their own recent purchases in social networks), consumers are constantly shopping, even if they are doing it in a passive manner. 
“People have a [predetermined] mental image of the marketplace even if they’re not in it. Even if you’re not a snowboarder, you probably have an image of what the market is like,” Todd Powers, executive vice president, primary research, the Advertising Research Foundation, tells Marketing Daily. “By the time you start that active search, you already have the view of the marketplace. The old image we had was using the funnel. Those stages still exist; they’re not linear anymore.”

Can Local Newspapers Collaborate with Blogs? J-Lab Finds Answers

mediashift reporting;
J-Lab recently released the results of its Networked Journalism pilot project, a three-year initiative that "called for eight newspapers and one public radio station to network with local blogs," resulting in "nine different models of collaboration," J-Lab reports.
In a detailed report called Networked Journalism: What Works, J-Lab's executive director, Jan Schaffer, outlines the problem the project was designed to explore:
With U.S. newspapers losing more than 42,000 journalists since 2007, local news coverage has suffered. At the same time, hundreds of local blogs and news sites have launched in their markets ... What role can traditional news organizations play not only to expose their audiences to more news than they themselves can deliver, but also to connect new sources of information rising throughout their communities?
She concludes that for a partnership between a legacy newsroom and its community partners to succeed, two things are needed: First, "it is the responsibility of the hub news organization to provide their news networks with enough visibility and outbound links to drive traffic to their partners' sites." And second, "it is the responsibility of the community news partners to post frequently enough to be robust participants and to nab the visibility -- either on the network page or the home page -- that would bring them traffic."
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2012/12/can-local-newspapers-collaborate-with-blogs-j-lab-finds-answers341.html

E-Books via Kindle FreeTime Unlimited: Game-Changer or Non-Starter?

PW reporting:
Amazon’s launch of Kindle FreeTime Unlimited, announced earlier this week, could change the way e-books are distributed to consumers. But the new subscription service, which is targeted at kids between ages three and eight and offers access to books, games, movies, TV shows and educational apps, raises questions and red flags for the publishing industry.
Andrews McMeel is one publisher providing select titles from its AMP! Comics for Kids imprint, including Big Nate books. “It’s a safe environment for kids and families to access digital content and a good way for us to build awareness for our brands,” says Kirsty Melville, president and publisher of AM’s book division. “We learn things every time we partner with different distribution models. Lots of people are trying to reach kids as they get more access to digital devices, and this is an interesting opportunity to explore a new way to give kids access to our content and see what happens.”

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2230297/relevant-content-is-key-to-getting-digital-news-readers-interested-in-mobile-ads#disqus_thread

Relevant Content Is Key to Getting Digital News Readers Interested in Mobile Ads

ClickZ reporting;
Consumers who get their news on mobile devices look for ads that are relevant to the news, according to a new study from mobile ad network Mojiva.
Mojiva's study surveyed 1,000 U.S. and 1,000 U.K. mobile users to find out what sort of trends are coming out of the digital news market. According to the study, consumers are now getting their news fix from a variety of sources. Mojiva also found that when it comes to mobile ads on news sites it's all about relevance.
Consumers ranked relevance, humor, and interesting ad content as keys to getting them to pay attention to ads on mobile news sites. According to the study, 67 percent of U.S. consumers will pay more attention to an ad if it's relevant to the news item they are reading.
Another interesting factoid from the research is that 19 percent of U.S. respondents said humor is an important factor when it comes to ads. Another 15 percent said they are more likely to check out a mobile advertisement that has interesting content.
Ads on mobile news sites have become a growing way to get consumers to pay attention to advertisers. According to Mojiva, 24 percent of U.S. respondents reported they get their primary news from a smartphone or tablet.
Mojiva also found that 30 percent of respondents say they receive their breaking news via text message or mobile notifications. That figure comes in contrast to the 29 percent of respondents who said they rely on the traditional television sets to discover breaking news.
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2230297/relevant-content-is-key-to-getting-digital-news-readers-interested-in-mobile-ads#disqus_thread

Sunday, December 2, 2012

The Best (and Worst) of Mobile Connectivity

PEW reporting:
Some 85% of American adults own a cell phone, and these mobile devices now play a central role in many aspects of their owners’ lives according to a new survey. For many cell owners, their phone is an essential utility that they check frequently, keep close at all times, and would have trouble functioning without:
  • 67% of cell owners find themselves checking their phone for messages, alerts, or calls — even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating. Some 18% of cell owners say that they do this “frequently."
  • 44% of cell owners have slept with their phone next to their bed because they wanted to make sure they didn’t miss any calls, text messages, or other updates during the night.
  • 29% of cell owners describe their cell phone as “something they can’t imagine living without."
Despite this connection to their devices, most cell owners don’t worry too much (or get many complaints from their friends) about spending too much time with their phones:
http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Best-Worst-Mobile.aspx

Online sales are flat-lining at newspapers

Newsosaur reporting:
With total ad sales sliding 5.1% in the third quarter of this year, newspapers have set what must be some sort of record in the annals of American business by having their primary revenue stream fall for 25 quarters in a row. 

In 75 months of unremitting declines, the industry’s consolidated advertising sales have plunged from an all-time high of $49.4 billion in 2005 to what I estimate will be no better than $22.5 billion in 2012. The year-end revenue projection is based on historic trends. 
  ...
One of the reasons newspapers are underperforming the market is that they have built their interactive businesses on the two weakest digital advertising categories: banner and classified advertising...
http://newsosaur.blogspot.ca/2012/11/online-sales-are-flat-lining-at.html

Tablet Readers Don’t Want Interactivity, Says Hearst President

Mashable reporting:
When Hearst first launched digital editions for the iPad, it loaded its titles with interactive features — features, Hearst President David Carey said, readers don’t necessarily want.
“We had to find out whether people wanted something all-new and interactive, or if they just wanted the magazine in mobile mode,” Carey recounted onstage at Mashable‘s Media Summit in New York City Friday. “The industry overshot the interactivity early on. What we discovered is that most people just want the product itself,” he explained, echoing the sentiments expressed by editors at The New Yorker and Popular Science.
In 2010, Hearst partnered with app developer Scrollmotion to develop richly engaging magazine apps for the iPad. The first issues of titles, including Esquire and O: The Oprah Magazine, were loaded with multimedia and interactive elements: photographs and graphic models that could be swiveled 360 degrees, illustrations that became animated upon touch. Audio and video made frequent appearances, too.
Esquire took over the development of its tablet edition from Scrollmotion beginning with its November 2012 issue. The issue still offers some of the same interactivity as previous issues, including videos and an animated cover, but certainly not as many as before.
“We were frustrated with how unstable the app was,” David Granger, Esquire‘s editor-in-chief, told me in an interview at Esquire‘s offices earlier this month. “We had a lot of complaints, a lot of bad reviews,” he said of the reason for switching to Adobe’s publishing software.
http://mashable.com/2012/11/30/hearst-tablets-interativity/

Children’s E-Books Surge in First Half of 2012, Paperback Sales Sag

dwb reporting:
Revenues from children’s and young adult e-books were up to $146.4 million in the first half of 2012, an increase of 252% over the same period last year. At the same time, adult trade e-books were up 34.4% in the first half, a marked slowdown from triple-digit growth a year earlier. Meanwhile, trade paperback sales are down about 20%, presumably losing sales to e-book buyers.
Overall, e-book sales accounted for about 25% of total trade sales, up to $768 million for the first half, an increase of 52% over the same period last year, according to Publishers Lunch.
From 2007 through 2011, e-book sales doubled or more every year. Digital growth at major trade publishing companies like Random House and Hachette — bellwethers for the industry — has slowed, too. Digital publishing revenues at both companies now represent 27% of total revenues, up from about 21% the year before.
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/childrens-e-books-surge-in-first-half-of-2012-paperback-sales-sag/

Who Do Online Advertisers Think You Are?

NYT reporting:
....To dig deeper into my new identities, I visited the Web site of BlueKai, one of the leading online data aggregators. The company’s software enables its customers to sort consumers into 30,000 market segments like “light spenders” and “safety-net seniors,” and this fine-grained categorization helps make real-time bidding possible. According to BlueKai, Republican Jeff is someone who makes between $60,000 and $74,999 a year, lives in Portland, Me., is interested in luxury cars, celebrities and TV, may have bought a cruise ticket, is an ideal candidate to take out a mortgage and a “midscale thrift spender.” Democratic Jeff is someone who lives in Los Angeles, Long Beach or Santa Ana, runs a large company with more than 5,001 employees and cares about advertising and marketing. Neither of these profiles is accurate. Nevertheless, the pigeonholing of Republican Jeff and Democratic Jeff represents our digital future.
Google and Facebook have each been expanding their use of real-time bidding. In June, Facebook announced that it would introduce a new service called Facebook Exchange, which will enable advertisers to send promotions for Spanish hotels, say, to Facebook users who have searched for trips to Spain.
Should we worry about ads aimed specifically at us everywhere we go on the Web and, increasingly, on our mobile devices too? Yes, and not just because the ads can be invasive and annoying. Real-time bidding also makes the online marketplace less of an even playing field, allowing companies to send loyalty points or discounts — or price increases — to individuals based on their perceived spending power. The travel site Orbitz, after learning that Mac users spend 30 percent more on hotel rooms than P.C. users, has started to send Mac users ads for hotels that are 11 percent more expensive than the ones that P.C. users are seeing, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.....

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Esquire Uses App To Make Print Magazine Pages Interactive

AppNewser reporting:
How do you keep print alive in a digital world? That is a big question these days. To help keep the printed page relevant, Esquire is testing adding app-triggered interactive features to print editions by partnering with a company called Netpage.
Netpage’s tool is called Digital Twin. A user points this smartphone app at a Netpage-enabled print page which creates a digital replica of the printed page from the cloud. In this environment, a user can clip and share content digitally and even watch videos. A code is not required.
The December 2012 issue of Esquire is the first magazine to use this new tool. The entire magazine has been doctored to become interactive. From now on, all issues of Esquire will be Netpage-enabled and next year Hearst plans to use this app with even more titles.
http://www.mediabistro.com/appnewser/esquire-uses-app-to-make-print-magazine-pages-interactive_b28613

‘The Economist’ Finds Charging For Digital & Print Separately Works Best

AppNewser reporting:
Like many publications whose readers are looking for both digital and print options, The Economist has been experimenting with different ways to package its content to subscribers.
The magazine offers subscribers content through its weekly print magazine, app editions of the magazine, as well as online access. For readers who commit to a two-year subscription, a print subscription is  $2.19 a week; a digital subscription is 2.19 a week; and a subscrition to both is $2.74 a week. Full app access used to be free with a print subscription.
In an interview published today by Ad AgeMichael Brunt, SVP of circulation for the Americas and global head of marketing at Economist Digital, explains why the magazine stopped giving away app access with a print subscription.http://www.mediabistro.com/appnewser/the-economist-finds-charging-for-digital-print-separately-works-best_b29149

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Cosmopolitan ja Me Naiset pyh, Kodin Kuvalehti on arvostetuin

M&M reporting:
Naistenlehtimaailman arvostuskuningatar on myös levikkikuningatar.
Kodin Kuvalehti on suomalaisten mielestä kaikkein arvostetuin naistenlehtibrändi. Toiseksi arvostetuin on Kauneus&Terveys ja kolmanneksi arvostetuin Kotiliesi.
Kodin Kuvalehdellä on myös Suomen suurin levikki. Levikintarkastus Oy:n mukaan lehdellä oli viime vuonna 168 502 tilaajaa.
Irtonumeromyyntimarkkinoita hallitsevat Cosmopolitan (irtonumeromyynti 28 070 kappaletta vuonna 2011) ja Me Naiset (24 307) jäävät arvostuksessa selvästi kärkikolmikon taakse.
Tiedot perustuvat Taloustutkimuksen ja Markkinointi&Mainonta-lehden "Brändien arvostus 2012" -tutkimukseen. Tutkimuksessa selvitettiin 1090 brändin arvostus suomalaisten keskuudessa.http://www.marmai.fi/uutiset/cosmopolitan+ja+me+naiset+pyh+kodin+kuvalehti+on+arvostetuin/a2156699

Guardian mobile visits overtake desktop at some times of day

thequardian reporting:
"Mobile is having a huge transformational effect not only on how our audience seek out content, but how they're discovering it," says Anthony Sullivan, group product manager for Guardian Core products at Guardian News & Media.
Sullivan was speaking at the Guardian Mobile Business Summit 2012 conference in London, where he provided some stats on how people are accessing Guardian products – its website, mobile website and native apps – on mobile phones and tablets.
"The way we've organised ourselves reflects that we put mobile really at the centre of our planning," said Sullivan, revealing that at the start of 2011, mobile devices accounted for just over 10% of visits to core Guardian products, but less than two years later, that's closer to 30%.
"That's just mobile handsets," added Sullivan. "Once you add tablets on top, that jumps to closer to 35%, and it's in tablets we're seeing the most rapid growth at the moment."
Sullivan said that 94% of tablet visits to Guardian products are on Apple's iPad, but that he expects this to change "pretty quickly" in the months ahead, thanks to the release of new, high-profile Android and Windows 8 tablets.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/appsblog/2012/nov/19/guardian-mobile-tablet-growth?utm_source=Daily+Buzz+from+eMedia+Vitals&utm_campaign=025e615e53-nl_DB_11_20_2012&utm_medium=email

On Edge: The Next Generation Explained

MarketingDaily reporting:

We’ve been through Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y/Millennials. Now it’s time to get ready for “Generation Edge.”
The term, as designated by brand consultancy The Sound Research, refers to consumers born after 1995,
many of whom are just moving into adulthood this year. Having grown up amid a series of foundation-shattering crises (among them September 11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the financial collapse of 2008), Generation Edge is less entitled than their predecessors, the Millennials.
“What we’ve seen is that they’re very, very different from Millennials,” Ian Pierpoint, global president at The Sound Research, tells Marketing Daily. “Firstly, their parents and the influence their parents had on them. Millennials were raised by Boomer parents. These guys have been brought up by Generation X, who were and remain cynical, rebellious and want to do things their own way.”
Having lived through a global recession and no guarantee of higher education, Generation Edge understands that things in life will not come easily, Pierpoint says. Rather, they understand success is not guaranteed and do not take accomplishments for granted. Rather, they are more defined by their ability to roll with the punches, he says.
“Because of the way their parents have brought them up, they’ve got a bit of an edge,” Pierpoint says. “Millennials were not rebellious; they’re extremely conformist. Generation Edge want to cut their own path in life.” 
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/187543/on-edge-the-next-generation-explained.html?edition=53704#axzz2Cx6ikOS6 

We’ve been through Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y/Millennials. Now it’s time to get ready for “Generation Edge.”
The term, as designated by brand consultancy The Sound Research, refers to consumers born after 1995, many of whom are just moving into adulthood this year. Having grown up amid a series of foundation-shattering crises (among them September 11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the financial collapse of 2008), Generation Edge is less entitled than their predecessors, the Millennials. 
“What we’ve seen is that they’re very, very different from Millennials,” Ian Pierpoint, global president at The Sound Research, tells Marketing Daily. “Firstly, their parents and the influence their parents had on them. Millennials were raised by Boomer parents. These guys have been brought up by Generation X, who were and remain cynical, rebellious and want to do things their own way.” 
Having lived through a global recession and no guarantee of higher education, Generation Edge understands that things in life will not come easily, Pierpoint says. Rather, they understand success is not guaranteed and do not take accomplishments for granted. Rather, they are more defined by their ability to roll with the punches, he says. 
“Because of the way their parents have brought them up, they’ve got a bit of an edge,” Pierpoint says. “Millennials were not rebellious; they’re extremely conformist. Generation Edge want to cut their own path in life.”
Moving forward, brands that have cultivated a positioning as somehow rebellious or a non-conformist choice will do well against this new demographic, Pierpoint says. “They’re a little like [their parents] Generation X,” he says.


Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/187543/on-edge-the-next-generation-explained.html?edition=53704#ixzz2Cx77TPdu

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

90% Of 18-29 Year-Olds Sleep With Their Smartphones

Business Insider reporting:
http://www.businessinsider.com/90-of-18-29-year-olds-sleep-with-their-smartphones-2012-11?nr_email_referer=1&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=SAI%20Select&utm_campaign=SAI%20Select%202012-11-21
A cool infographic by Online Psychology Degree shows the extent to which smartphones have basically become a new bodily appendage:
  • 90% of 18-29 year olds sleep with their smartphones
  • 1 in 3 people would rather give up sex than their phone
  • 95% of people use the phone for something just before going to bed
  • Half of people check their phones immediately if they wake up during the night
Unfortunately, our bodies haven't quite adapted to the change yet:
  • 63% of people aren't getting enough sleep
  • Too much screen time reduces melatonin, the chemical that makes you sleep
  • Not sleeping makes you stressed and depressed
  • Sleeping fewer than 6 hours a night raises your heart attack risk by 50%


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/90-of-18-29-year-olds-sleep-with-their-smartphones-2012-11#ixzz2Csg0QLZA
A cool infographic by Online Psychology Degree shows the extent to which smartphones have basically become a new bodily appendage:
  • 90% of 18-29 year olds sleep with their smartphones
  • 1 in 3 people would rather give up sex than their phone
  • 95% of people use the phone for something just before going to bed
  • Half of people check their phones immediately if they wake up during the night
Unfortunately, our bodies haven't quite adapted to the change yet:
  • 63% of people aren't getting enough sleep
  • Too much screen time reduces melatonin, the chemical that makes you sleep
  • Not sleeping makes you stressed and depressed
  • Sleeping fewer than 6 hours a night raises your heart attack risk by 50%
Check out the infographic here.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/90-of-18-29-year-olds-sleep-with-their-smartphones-2012-11#ixzz2CscwlO5K

A cool infographic by Online Psychology Degree shows the extent to which smartphones have basically become a new bodily appendage:
  • 90% of 18-29 year olds sleep with their smartphones
  • 1 in 3 people would rather give up sex than their phone
  • 95% of people use the phone for something just before going to bed
  • Half of people check their phones immediately if they wake up during the night
Unfortunately, our bodies haven't quite adapted to the change yet:
  • 63% of people aren't getting enough sleep
  • Too much screen time reduces melatonin, the chemical that makes you sleep
  • Not sleeping makes you stressed and depressed
  • Sleeping fewer than 6 hours a night raises your heart attack risk by 50%
Check out the infographic here.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/90-of-18-29-year-olds-sleep-with-their-smartphones-2012-11#ixzz2CscwlO5K

Hyperlocal Video Finally Comes of Age

Street Fight reporting:
Hyperlocal video has, until now, been basically an oxymoron. The local television stations push out a decent amount of video but it has a metro rather than a hyperlocal focus. Patch.com and other hyperlocal news networks have done a bit of video, but it remains expensive to produce and comparatively hard to monetize at lower traffic levels. Even as small businesses increasingly embrace social media marketing and, to a lesser degree, online text and display ads, you don’t see a lot of mom-and-pop stores doing DIY video ad placements. Likewise, there are a wide variety of video ad networks but those have largely failed to penetrate down to the hyperlocal level — except for wide-scale networks that primarily dump remnant ads on less-trafficked hyperlocal videos.Which is why a platform like Glocal looks really, really interesting. The Ann Arbor, Michigan video scraping and curation startup has some pretty nifty technology that allows users to drill down to find video content close to where they live. The U.S. map allows users to quickly zoom in and out of local and regional video collections. At this point, there really isn’t enough truly hyperlocal video content to make a platform like Glocal interesting. A drill-down into the San Francisco area reveals only a handful of videos on offer and none that are truly hyperlocal. But the company is skating to the opportunity space ahead of the puck.
http://streetfightmag.com/2012/11/21/hyperlocal-video-finally-coming-of-age/#.UKzt1oXXrRs

Take a Broader View Of Agile To Survive In The Digital Age

Forrester reporting:
finished analyzing our 2012 State Of EA survey, were we asked a number of questions at the end of the survey on how firm’s identify and introduce new technology - new technology that your firm is counting on for innovation and competitive advantage. The results underscore a conviction that is growing in me: IT’s “one size fits all” approach to standardizing everything, and general aversion to risk isn't cutting the mustard. Simply put, opportunities for competitive advantage through technology fueled disruption get missed and this means digital extinction. Some data from our survey of 207 enterprise architects:
  • 58% reported that sales and marketing is in the top five most likely organizations to deliver technology innovations, and they are chasing windows of opportunity that close in months. IT typically takes at least a year to do anything.
  • 52% say there is at least some business dissatisfaction with the level of new technology introduction. The top reason, given by 78% of respondents, is that IT is too slow.
  • 70% of firms admit to having trouble reacting to disruptions caused by emerging technology, and 60% admit to difficulty reacting to change in general.
The good news is that firms employing agile development methods are much better with emerging technology, not surprisingly. For example, only 3 of 20 respondents who reported using agile development reported significant troubles with emerging technology disruption. Compared this to 54 of 207 across the whole survey – a big difference.
We think agile development practices are not enough, however.  In the words of one executive we spoke with, a process for identifying, selecting and getting funding for emerging technology is lacking.  We find that most firms lump emerging technology into the same pipeline with everything else, and this causes the lost opportunities due to ponderous planning, rigid standards, and low risk tolerance...
http://blogs.forrester.com/brian_hopkins/12-11-20-take_a_broader_view_of_agile_to_survive_in_the_digital_age?utm_source=Daily+Buzz+from+eMedia+Vitals&utm_campaign=31c48d5c36-nl_DB_11_21_2012&utm_medium=email

Debate Club: Direct or Brand Ads on The Third Screen?

Digiday reporting:
The shift to mobile is happening. The problem: small screens leave little room for great creative and fat fingers push up click-through rates. We asked speakers at the Digiday Mobile conference on Dec. 13 to pick a side, is mobile media better suited for brand advertising or direct, and why?
Based on today’s display standards, we are still seeing more direct-response work in the mobile industry than brand advertising. However, a lot of mobile advertising remains interruptive and distracts from a user’s primary intent. Given the highly personal nature of mobile devices, advertisers should develop richer brand advertising that creates emotional connections through service and utility.
Jonathan Greene, managing director of mobile and social platforms, R/GA
The mobile medium is great for brand advertising within news and other editorial content. Readers are deeply engaged with what they’re reading — and the advertising that accompanies it — on a mobile screen. Brand advertising can be targeted and can be effective when it gracefully interrupts the user’s reading experience as a full-page ad in a magazine does. Plus, sponsor content is a very promising brand-advertising format on mobile and tablet.
Kevin Delaney, editor-in-chief, Quartz....
http://www.digiday.com/platforms/debate-club-direct-or-brand-ads-on-the-third-screen/?utm_source=Daily+Buzz+from+eMedia+Vitals&utm_campaign=31c48d5c36-nl_DB_11_21_2012&utm_medium=email

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Tablet and print magazines are ‘working in combination’, claims trade body

TabTimes reporting:
New research from the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) puts a positive spin on how tablet editions are helping magazine publishers that are struggling with falling print circulation.
The Tablets and Publishing (TAP) report sees the UK-based PPA draw on both internal market research as well as handful of international studies, and states that 96% of tablet owners have read a printed magazine in the last year, compared to the national average of 80%.
And while this perhaps merely backs up other reports that tablet owners now read more, the report indicates that readers “continue to want both formats”, with tablets in particular making readers more open to trying new brands.
"There is a strong link between tablet owners and magazine readership,” said Marius Cloete, head of research at the PPA.
"A number of studies suggest that digital editions are reinvigorating the appetite for magazine media and this has been confirmed by our own research with Tolunaquick, which demonstrates that digital editions are not eroding the market for print editions, instead quite the opposite.

"Tablet owners are more likely to have read and purchased printed magazines in the previous three months than the national average, dispelling the myth that tablet owners are abandoning print in favour of digital. The two platforms instead appear to be working in combination to expand consumers' reading repertoire".
Elsewhere in the report, the PPA highlights earlier research from GFK that magazine ads deliver slightly better levels of recall on the tablet (56%) than on print (53%), and puts forward that the magazine market can, thanks to tablets, continue to look forward to a bright future going forward
http://tabtimes.com/news/media/2012/11/13/tablet-and-print-magazines-are-working-combination-claims-trade-body

Saturday, November 17, 2012

People Magazine Launches Custom Social Platform

Folio reporting:
As more and more women turn to social media for information and interaction, so is People magazine. The Time Inc. title has launched “Your Turn” within its website—its own social platform that allows users to contribute to and share with People.com.
By visiting YourTurn.People.com users can upload photos for various “challenges” that are tied to engaging news or trending topics on the site. To participate, a user shares images from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or a desktop computer. Submissions are also collected from different social networks by using a People.com determined hash tag that coincides with a specific challenge.
“We’ve been collecting user photos over the past few years—we’ve offered a lot of different challenges for readers, from Halloween to show us your cute pets,” says Janice Morris, managing editor for People Digital. “But we never had one place to house all the images and we never did it consistently, instead treating it as a special event. We wanted to give readers more of a turnkey platform to work with because it’s so easy to upload now with all the social tools, and hash tags make it easy to share and communicate.”
To take advantage of the presidential election buzz, for example, People asked readers to share pictures of themselves voting. Using the hash tag #YTIVoted, users could tweet or use Instagram to share their images with the magazine, which were then uploaded to this social platform in the “Share Your Voting Pics” challenge section. Morris says the brand hopes to roll out a new challenge everyday, though testing is still taking place to determine the best frequency.
http://www.foliomag.com/2012/people-magazine-launches-custom-social-platform?utm_source=Daily+Buzz+from+eMedia+Vitals&utm_campaign=1f6768aede-nl_DB_11_16_2012&utm_medium=email#.UKelTYXXrRs

New Survey Supports That Ebook Borrowers Buy, Too

digitalbookwire reporting:
Readers who borrow ebooks from libraries also buy books at an impressive clip — and their buying has accelerated, according to a new survey.
An online poll of 75,000 library patrons conducted by Cleveland-based library lending platform OverDrive and the American Library Association found that those who borrow ebooks also buy about 3.2 print books and ebooks per month. Further, 44% of survey respondents reported that their digital content purchases have increased over the past six months.
The finding supports that of a study from earlier in the year from the Pew Internet and American Life project which found that among those who borrow ebooks, 41% bought the last book they read.
“Library lending encourages people to experiment with new authors, topics and genre — which is good for the entire reading and publishing ecosystem,” said Carrie Russell, director of the ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy, in a statement.
The ALA and libraries nationwide are eager to convince publishers that libraries offer them a solution to one of their growing problems: How will readers discover new books in a world of disappearing bricks-and-mortar bookshelf space?
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/new-survey-supports-that-ebook-borrowers-buy-too/?et_mid=590098&rid=233619411

Copy and Paste Drives Sharing

emarketing reporting:
Social sharing buttons may be sexier, but according to research from user engagement platform Tynt, copy and paste is the sharing method of choice 82% of the time.
The service, which offers a way for content publishers to track sharing behavior through embedded code that indicates referrals and includes site URLs when content is pasted elsewhere, reported that in October 2012, 2% of all page views across its network involved a copy and paste.
Just over half of the content copied was then shared. This could be in an email, an instant message or another social channel. In addition, about one-quarter of copy-and-pastes resulted in a search—that is, a word or phrase from the content being viewed was copied into a search bar to look for more information on the topic.

The future of the feature: Breaking out of templates to build customized reading experiences

NiemanJournalismLab reporting:
When it comes to reading long form, the web can be an ugly, distracting place. It’s the reason why services like Instapaper and Pocket (née Read It Later) exist: to strip content of its context — noisy site designs, advertisements, and other unnecessary elements. But perhaps we’re moving into a new era where more of the web is clean and readable. Maybe the future of web publications will be beautiful enough that the reading experience is more enjoyable in its natural habitat.
This is how I felt, at least, when I came across ESPN.com’s “The Long Strange Trip of Dock Ellis,” a gorgeously designed feature about the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher who threw a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD. It’s arguably one of baseball’s most colorful tales; this take on it is certainly one of the most ambitious web designs ever attempted by a traditional media company for a single article. The piece is generously adorned with accompanying visuals — photos of Ellis, memorabilia like trading cards, pull quotes, all moving and sliding while the reader scrolls. The reading experience is very comfortable on both desktop and tablet, thanks to a larger text size and generous amounts of white space. It’s feels like an experience instead of a block of words surrounded by the detritus of the web.
But at a time when news is increasingly consumed without context — stripped down in tablet readers or on mobile devices — and when templates have taken over news web design, what’s the point of dedicating design resources to online feature layouts? Why are outlets like ESPN, Pitchfork, and The Verge investing in bespoke design for articles?...
http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/11/the-future-of-the-feature-breaking-out-of-templates-to-build-customized-reading-experiences/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_campaign=58419386f4-DAILY_EMAIL&utm_medium=email

Nielsen: TV Usage Of 'TV' Continues To Erode, Mobile Is Fastest-Growing Segment

mediaonline reporting:
The amount of time Americans spend watching “TV” via a traditional television set continues to decline, according to the latest edition of Nielsen’s quarterly Cross Platform Report. While television remains the overwhelming means most people use to watch “television,” usage of the medium declined 1.7% over the past year, according to the second-quarter 2012 report. While still minuscule in total time spent watching TV, mobile phones were the fastest-growing means of watching television over the past year. All other sources were either flat (the Internet) or declined (DVD/Blu-Ray, video game platforms) in terms of TV usage.
“Most of the content from these activities was delivered to us on the TV set in a traditional manner, over broadcast, cable, satellite or telco connection, and a growing amount was delivered by Internet connection,” Nielsen states in the report, adding: “Americans also added another five hours in front of the computer screen using the Internet or watching video content and an increasing amount of time using smartphones this quarter.”
Almost as many Americans (236.5 million) watched TV on their phones during the second quarter of 2012, as watched it on a conventional TV set (283.3 million), albeit for much shorter durations. While the average American spends nearly 145 hours per month watching TV on a traditional TV, Nielsen didn’t even report the average time they spend watching on their phones. But mobile subscribers watching video on their phones -- a smaller sub-segment of about 37 million Americans -- spend an average of five hours and 20 minutes watching TV on their phones each month, an increase of 31 minutes over the second quarter of 2011.
Time spent watching TV via other connected devices -- an Internet-connected computer, DVD/Blu-Ray and video game consoles -- also declined.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/187163/nielsen-tv-usage-of-tv-continues-to-erode-mobi.html?edition=53451#ixzz2CCgC4cFp
The amount of time Americans spend watching “TV” via a traditional television set continues to decline, according to the latest edition of Nielsen’s quarterly Cross Platform Report. While television remains the overwhelming means most people use to watch “television,” usage of the medium declined 1.7% over the past year, according to the second-quarter 2012 report. While still minuscule in total time spent watching TV, mobile phones were the fastest-growing means of watching television over the past year. All other sources were either flat (the Internet) or declined (DVD/Blu-Ray, video game platforms) in terms of TV usage.
“Most of the content from these activities was delivered to us on the TV set in a traditional manner, over broadcast, cable, satellite or telco connection, and a growing amount was delivered by Internet connection,” Nielsen states in the report, adding: “Americans also added another five hours in front of the computer screen using the Internet or watching video content and an increasing amount of time using smartphones this quarter.”
Almost as many Americans (236.5 million) watched TV on their phones during the second quarter of 2012, as watched it on a conventional TV set (283.3 million), albeit for much shorter durations. While the average American spends nearly 145 hours per month watching TV on a traditional TV, Nielsen didn’t even report the average time they spend watching on their phones. But mobile subscribers watching video on their phones -- a smaller sub-segment of about 37 million Americans -- spend an average of five hours and 20 minutes watching TV on their phones each month, an increase of 31 minutes over the second quarter of 2011.
Time spent watching TV via other connected devices -- an Internet-connected computer, DVD/Blu-Ray and video game consoles -- also declined.


Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/187163/nielsen-tv-usage-of-tv-continues-to-erode-mobi.html?edition=53451#ixzz2CUQPU8MP
The amount of time Americans spend watching “TV” via a traditional television set continues to decline, according to the latest edition of Nielsen’s quarterly Cross Platform Report. While television remains the overwhelming means most people use to watch “television,” usage of the medium declined 1.7% over the past year, according to the second-quarter 2012 report. While still minuscule in total time spent watching TV, mobile phones were the fastest-growing means of watching television over the past year. All other sources were either flat (the Internet) or declined (DVD/Blu-Ray, video game platforms) in terms of TV usage.
“Most of the content from these activities was delivered to us on the TV set in a traditional manner, over broadcast, cable, satellite or telco connection, and a growing amount was delivered by Internet connection,” Nielsen states in the report, adding: “Americans also added another five hours in front of the computer screen using the Internet or watching video content and an increasing amount of time using smartphones this quarter.”
Almost as many Americans (236.5 million) watched TV on their phones during the second quarter of 2012, as watched it on a conventional TV set (283.3 million), albeit for much shorter durations. While the average American spends nearly 145 hours per month watching TV on a traditional TV, Nielsen didn’t even report the average time they spend watching on their phones. But mobile subscribers watching video on their phones -- a smaller sub-segment of about 37 million Americans -- spend an average of five hours and 20 minutes watching TV on their phones each month, an increase of 31 minutes over the second quarter of 2011.
Time spent watching TV via other connected devices -- an Internet-connected computer, DVD/Blu-Ray and video game consoles -- also declined.
The amount of time Americans spend watching “TV” via a traditional television set continues to decline, according to the latest edition of Nielsen’s quarterly Cross Platform Report. While television remains the overwhelming means most people use to watch “television,” usage of the medium declined 1.7% over the past year, according to the second-quarter 2012 report. While still minuscule in total time spent watching TV, mobile phones were the fastest-growing means of watching television over the past year. All other sources were either flat (the Internet) or declined (DVD/Blu-Ray, video game platforms) in terms of TV usage.
“Most of the content from these activities was delivered to us on the TV set in a traditional manner, over broadcast, cable, satellite or telco connection, and a growing amount was delivered by Internet connection,” Nielsen states in the report, adding: “Americans also added another five hours in front of the computer screen using the Internet or watching video content and an increasing amount of time using smartphones this quarter.”
Almost as many Americans (236.5 million) watched TV on their phones during the second quarter of 2012, as watched it on a conventional TV set (283.3 million), albeit for much shorter durations. While the average American spends nearly 145 hours per month watching TV on a traditional TV, Nielsen didn’t even report the average time they spend watching on their phones. But mobile subscribers watching video on their phones -- a smaller sub-segment of about 37 million Americans -- spend an average of five hours and 20 minutes watching TV on their phones each month, an increase of 31 minutes over the second quarter of 2011.
Time spent watching TV via other connected devices -- an Internet-connected computer, DVD/Blu-Ray and video game consoles -- also declined.


Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/187163/nielsen-tv-usage-of-tv-continues-to-erode-mobi.html?edition=53451#ixzz2CUQPU8MP

Four things the Washington Post’s new editor can do to avoid disaster

gigaom reporting:
Now that the election is over, much of the talk in Washington media circles is likely focused on the other momentous change that has taken place: namely, the appointing of a new editor for the venerable Washington Post. While Marty Baron’s appearance at the Post isn’t fraught with the same amount of tension as former BBC director Mark Thompson’s arrival as the new CEO of the New York Times, he clearly has a tough climb ahead of him — the Post‘s circulation has been crumbling, and its financial picture is fairly dismal as well, and getting worse by the day.
So what should the new editor do to try and right the ship? Put up a paywall like everyone else? Lay off a few hundred more staff to try and cut costs? Buy something shiny that can give the Post some online credibility? Here are a few things I think Baron needs to do if he is to avoid disaster:

Figure out what the Post wants to be

This is probably the hardest question that Baron, the former editor of the Boston Globe, is going to face — next to the ever-present paywall one, of course. As media blogger Erik Wemple notes in one of his columns about the paper (which he writes for), the Post has literally spent years debating whether it should be a regional paper for Washington and the surrounding area, or whether it should try to challenge the New York Times for the national and international market.
There are arguments to be made for both: the Post is to some extent hamstrung by its past glories, including the famous Watergate scandal, and can’t seem to give up the idea that it is a national or even global player. And perhaps it shouldn’t. But the reality is that there’s probably a far better business opportunity — advertising-wise, at least — in focusing on serving local readers rather than trying to match the NYT for national and foreign reporting. The point is that the Post has to pick one, and dive headlong into that market, rather than trying to do both at the same time, because that road leads to perdition.

Commit to the anti-paywall strategy


Publisher Katharine Weymouth and CEO Don Graham have both talked openly about how they don’t believe a paywall will serve the paper or its readers, for a number of reasons — primarily because they appear to believe (as I do) that the benefits of remaining open and free outweigh the short-term financial benefits of putting up a paywall. But it’s not enough to just make the occasional comment about how this seems like a good idea: if the Post is going to get its staff on board, it needs to be shouting this philosophy from the rooftops in the same evangelical way that Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger does.
The reality is that the Post looks like the odd man out when it comes to paywalls, and the consensus that seems to be emerging — pushed by the Columbia Journalism Review, among others — is that it is going to fail because it is fiddling while Rome burns. If Graham and Weymouth believe that this isn’t the case, then they need to embrace the idea of open journalism as much as The Guardian has and double down on that strategy: release an open API, make videos about their passion for openness, launch some ambitious crowdsourcing projects, etc.
One thing the Post could do is to try and build a membership-based or “reverse paywall” approach, the kind that was suggested by its former managing editor Raju Narisetti (now at the WSJ).

Push the innovation meter to eleven...

Make “digital first” a core mandate...

The New Algorithm of Web Marketing

NYT reporting: Publishers and broadcasters have long tried to offer advertisers the right audience for their products. Want to sell pick-ups to people who like sports? Buy ads at halftime during a football game. Selling luggage or airline tickets? Buy ads in the travel section of a newspaper or Web site.
In digital advertising, that formula is being increasingly tested by fast-paced, algorithmic bidding systems that target individual consumers rather than the aggregate audience publishers serve up. In the world of “programmatic buying” technologies, context matters less than tracking those consumers wherever they go. And that kind of buying is the reason that shoe ad follows you whether you’re on Weather.com or on a local news blog.
That shift is punishing traditional online publishers, like newspaper, broadcast and magazine sites, who are receiving a much lower percentage of ad dollars as marketers use programmatic buying across a much broader canvas. Some sites, like CNN.com, refuse to even accept advertising through programmatic buying because they do not want to cede control over what ads will appear.
“It’s allowing advertisers to assign value to media rather than publishers,” said Ben Winkler, the chief digital officer at OMD, an agency in the Omnicom Media Group. Publishers, he said, “can’t control the price, but they can control the quality of the content and the audience on that site.”
About 10 percent of the display ads that consumers see online have been sold through programmatic bidding channels, according to Walter Knapp, the executive vice president of platform revenue and operations at Federated Media, one of the world’s largest digital advertising networks.
Advertisers like Nike, Comcast, Progressive and Procter & Gamble are now using the programmatic buying, and luxury advertisers are starting to follow...

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Five things The New York Times learned from its three-year hyperlocal experiment

NiemanJournalismLab reporting: With yesterday’s news that The New York Times is ending its affiliation with The Local — a pair of hyperlocal blogs that the newspaper launched three years ago — an experiment came to a close. And from the outset, the Times made it clear that it thought of its dive into neighborhood coverage as just that — an experiment, not an investment likely to generate financial returns. As the Times’ Jim Schachter told us in 2009, The Local would be, within the context of the Times, “barely enough to create a ripple in a pond and not enough to be profitable.”
But nonetheless, even with expectations set low, when the Times moves, people notice — and 2009 was a boom time for interest in hyperlocal, Times or no Times. Some running home-grown hyperlocal sites — the kind more recently assembled under the Authentically Local banner — questioned whether a big institution like The New York Times would have the right mix to pull off neighborhood coverage. (Check out the comments on that 2009 post to see the back-and-forth between Schachter and West Seattle Blog’s Tracy Record.)
The Local project started with a pair of community-focused sites covering neighborhoods in Brooklyn and New Jersey. By June 2010, the Jersey version of The Local was shuttered. Months later, the Times and NYU jointly launched an East Village iteration.
The Local was billed as an open-ended project with some specific ideas in mind. Blogs would be helmed by a couple of professional New York Times reporters, but story ideas and contributions would come from the community. If all went well, it might create a platform the Times could license to other communities.
“We, at least, have not figured out how to extract the professional journalist, or minimize it close to anything nearing zero”
As it turned out, the Times ended up handing off editorial control to local journalism schools — CUNY along with NYU — while keeping The Local branded as a collaboration with The New York Times. The schools have now formed committees to figure out what to do now that the newspaper is exiting, and Schachter — whose own Times goodbye party is tomorrow — told me that the newspaper “is giving them time to figure it out.”
Meanwhile, the newspaper is sussing out what it learned from the experiment. “What we have been trying to figure out at the Times — and I think what lots of people in this space have been trying to fiure out — is how do you prompt communities, and can you prompt communities into the act of covering themselves in a meaningful way?”...
http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/06/five-things-the-new-york-times-learned-from-its-three-year-hyperlocal-experiment/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4e48b3c965-DAILY_EMAIL

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

E-books Market Share at 22%, Amazon Has 27%

PW reporting:
E-books accounted for 22% of all book spending in the second quarter of 2012, only a one percentage point gain from the first quarter of the year, but up from 14% in the comparable period in 2011, according to new figures from Bowker Market Research. In the year-to-year comparison, the hardcover and trade paperback segments both lost two percentage points each to e-books, while mass market paperbacks’ share fell from 15% in the second quarter of 2011 to 12% in this year’s second period. (See our chart.)
With the fall of Borders and the growth of e-books, Amazon increased its market share of consumer book spending between the second quarter of 2011 and 2012, although its growth slowed between the first quarter of 2012 and the second period. Still, the e-tailer was easily the largest single channel for book purchases in the second quarter, with an 11 percentage-point lead over Barnes & Noble. B&N’s share of unit purchases fell by two percentage points between June 2011 and June 2012, most likely due to sluggish sales of print content through BN.com. Independent booksellers managed to hold their own in the period, maintaining a 6% share of units.
Aside from Amazon’s increase in market share in the June 2011–June 2012 period, the biggest channel shifts came in the “all other” and dedicated e-book and downloadable audio sites. (See our chart.) The 21% share of other units in June 2011 reflects sales of Borders, which had about an 8% share of the market in its last year of existence. One of the many reasons for the failure of Borders was the growth of e-books (and its lack of participation in that segment), and dedicated digital sites’ share of units rose from 1% in June 2011 to 6% in June 2012.
http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/retailing/article/54609-e-books-market-share-at-22-amazon-has-27.html?et_mid=588493&rid=233619411

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

comScore: Kindle Fire has highest readership rates for digital magazines, newspapers

ZDNet reporting:
Tablets are "reinventing" Americans' relationship with print publications, according to a new report from digital business analytics firm comScore.
Based on new figures, more and more tablet owners in the United States are using their tablets to read digital periodicals on a daily basis. For example, comScore cited that approximately one in 10 tablet owners read digital magazines and/or newspapers on their devices everyday as of August 2012.
Mark Donovan, senior vice president of mobile at comScore, explained in the report that tablets are "redefining" how people consume news because the format is much more suited for long-form content than PCs or smartphones:
In the case of online newspapers, tablets are now driving 7 percent of total page views, an impressive figure considering the relative infancy of the tablet space. Publishers that understand how these devices are shifting consumption dynamics will be best positioned to leverage this platform to not only drive incremental engagement among current subscribers but also attract new readers.
But which devices they are using tends to factor in to which kinds of periodicals they are reading, how often they are reading and for the length of each reading session.
Here's a snapshot of which tablets seemed to be the most popular for a given purpose:

'Native' ads disrupt the digital advertising model

emedia/vitals reporting:
Are advertorials really the new black? It appears that way, as publishers embrace “native” advertising formats that put a digital spin on print advertorials and “special advertising sections.”
The native advertising push has been driven by social media, with Facebook pioneering sponsored stories and Twitter offering sponsored tweets as advertising vehicles that integrate with the content streams of those respective platforms. Digital publishers are now embracing the concept for their own web properties, offering native programs that integrate advertising and editorial. Their goal is to sell more of these premium programs to prevent digital advertising from devolving into a cesspool of low-CPM, programmatic buying.
Questions remain, however, about the effectiveness of sponsored stories, branded content or other attempts to commingle marketing messages with editorial content. Proponents call it “providing a consistent user experience.” Detractors say it blurs traditional church and state lines between editorial and advertising.
Worse, ads-as-content might actually damage brands. Survey results released today by MediaBrix show that the majority of online adults find native advertising – in any medium – to be misleading. Specifically, 45% found Twitter’s promoted tweets misleading, 57% found Facebook’s sponsored stories misleading, 66% found advertorials misleading, and 86% objected to sponsored video ads that appear to be content. The majority also said these types of ads negatively impacted or had no impact on their perception of the brand being advertised.
http://www.emediavitals.com/content/native-ads-disrupt-digital-advertising-model?utm_source=Daily+Buzz+from+eMedia+Vitals&utm_campaign=f719147509-nl_DB_11_06_2012&utm_medium=email

The Cross-Platform Report: How and Where Content is Watched S

Nilesen Wire reporting:
According to the latest Nielsen Cross-Platform Report, Americans spend nearly 35 hours per week watching video across screens, and close to another five hours using the Internet on a computer. Consumers are not turning off their devices, and there is no doubt that they are faced with more choices in terms of how they watch video content. Shifts in the distribution of time spent across all screens and devices demonstrate that more consumers are taking advantage of their increased ability to determine what, how and where they view content.
Nielsen_Q12012 Cross-Platform Time Spent
Gaming consoles are not just for gamers...

Apple’s Tablet Market Share Drops to 50.4%

Mashable reporting:
Apple‘s tablet market share has dropped to 50.4% in Q3 2012, down from 59.7% in the same period last year, IDC’s latest report reveals.
Samsung, on the other hand, has experienced huge growth, jumping from 6.5% to 18.4% in that same period. Amazon holds the third place with 9%, followed by Asus with 8.6% and Lenovo with 1.4%.
The old Silicon Valley joke, which claimed that “there is no tablet market, only an iPad market,” is obviously no longer true. According to IDC’s numbers, Samsung shipped 5.1 million tablets worldwide in 3Q12, up 115% from 2Q12 and 325% from 3Q11.
tablets
Things are looking very good for Amazon, also, whose rapidly expanding Kindle Fire lineup has helped it double its market share quarter-over-quarter.
http://mashable.com/2012/11/05/apples-tablet-market-share-drops-to-50-4-percent-report/

Friday, November 2, 2012

How HTML5 Based Books will Disrupt the Digital Publishing Sector

goodEreader reporting:
Many digital publishing companies are increasingly looking to iOS and Google Android to make standalone apps for their eBooks or digital properties. They also deal with the traditional eBook format that is available via online retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo. Dedicated app development geared towards a singular platform normally warrants an extensive programing department to generally refine the apps over time and add new content. Digital Publishers and Online retailers all make apps to garner customers dollars and offer distribution systems to push sales to the end user. HTML5 seeks to disrupt the current model everyone is employing to the entire Digital Publishing Industry.
Last year Google released the source code for their browser based ebook “20 things I learned about Browsers and the Web”  It features a very solid animated book, complete with turn page animations. Most of the content is highly interactive and publishers can easily insert a picture and the text will conform to where you are dragging it within the book.  It revolutionized the way that electronic books are accessible via a multitude of web browsers. Instead of making a dedicated app, they made it available to be read on tablets, iPhones, computers and every other mobile device.
Amazon and Kobo have already taken advantage of HTML5, by opening their Kindle Cloud Reader and Kobo Reader. These were initially designed and made available to buy, purchase and read books on the iPad and iPhones. Apple had implemented a policy last year that demanded all in-app purchases be made by iTunes. This resulted in these two companies disabling the functionality to buy electronic content in the app. They bypassed this by developed a fully featured HTML5 based store app, that functioned like their iOS or Android equivalents...
One of the most highly contested debates these days is between books that are encrypted via Digital Rights Management and books that are free to share. We also see many different ebook formats like AZW, EPUB, PRC, PDF, TXT, RTF, CBR, CBZ and many more. This confuses the average user who just wants to buy a book on their Kindle and read it later on their Nook or on their PC.As it stands, you can’t read books purchased from Amazon on any other device. If you want to buy a book from Barnes and Noble and read it on your Kobo, you need to use complicated software like Adobe Digital Editions. Selling the HTML5 based version and using the e-Reader, Tablet and any PC’s web browser would give you a fuller experience and cut down on the manual work customers have to do, just to enjoy their book. This would seriously disrupt the conventional way that people use different ebook formats...
http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/how-html5-based-books-will-disrupt-the-digital-publishing-sector/

Children’s Ebooks up 89% in July, Adult up 48%

dwb reporting:
Growth in children’s ebook publishing revenues in the U.S. showed signs of slowing from a stupendous rate earlier in the year, perhaps affected by the Hunger Games ebook sales tapering off. Adult trade ebook growth in July was in line with figures from the rest of the year which show a steep drop-off from triple-digit growth rates of the past few years, according to new figures from the Association of American Publishers.
Children’s ebooks grew by 89% in July 2012 versus the same period last year — a fast growth rate, to be sure, but much slower than in early 2012 when children’s ebooks saw monthly growth rates of 475.1% in January and 177.8% in February.
The slowdown is likely due to tapering sales for Scholastic’s smash hit The Hunger Games...
Meanwhile, adult ebook sales were up 48% in July versus the same period last year. From 2007 through 2011, e-book sales doubled or more every year. This year, ebook growth has slowed to a still-breakneck speed of about 30% to 50%. According to Publishers Lunch, ebook revenues are at about 26% of overall trade publishing revenues...http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/childrens-ebooks-up-89-in-july-adult-up-48/

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Penguin and Random House Combine to Form World’s Largest Book Publisher

dbw reporting:
Pearson and Bertelsmann plan to combine their Penguin and Random House trade publishing businesses to form the world’s largest book publisher. The deal will be subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the second half of 2013. The combined firm will be called Penguin Random House, the companies announced in separate statements this morning.
Penguin Random House will be led by Markus Dohle and John Makinson. Dohle, the current Random House chairman and CEO, will be the CEO of Penguin Random House. Makinson, the current Penguin chairman and CEO, will be chairman of the board. Bertelsmann will own 53% of Penguin Random House and Pearson will own 47%. The two companies together would have about 9,000 employees. The agreement wouldn’t include certain assets, like Random House’s Germany-based trade publishing unit; and Pearson would retain the right to use the Penguin name and logo in its education business, according to the New York Times.
Related: What the New Penguin Random House Logo Might Look Like | What the Merger Means
In the statements, Bertelsmann chairman & CEO Thomas Rabe spoke of the new firm’s size and scope...
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/penguin-and-random-house-combine-to-form-worlds-largest-book-publisher/?et_mid=587142&rid=233619411

The Somewhat Surprising State of Online Advertising

HubSpot Blog reporting:
What do you think of it? Annoying? Effective? Come a long way? Waste of money? Don't even notice it?
And when you're answering, are you answering as a marketer, or as a consumer? Or (gasp) both? Some of us do fall into both buckets, after all.
Adobe set out to answer some of these very questions in their recent report, The State of Online Advertising. In their research, Adobe partnered with Edelmen Berland to survey 1,250 adults over age 18 -- 1,000 were part of the general population, and 250 were marketing decision makers. They asked the survey respondents questions about advertising, and sometimes even marketing, trying to get a gauge on things like channel effectiveness, preferences, and just gut feelings. Hey, make fun of those warm and fuzzy feelings all you want, but putting some numbers behind them is a mighty task worth attempting!
Take a look at some of the most fascinating highlights from their study on online advertising; and I encourage you to take notice of how the discrepancies between consumers' and marketers' opinions play out, too. It's always good and sobering to take off your marketer hat and remember how your target audience actually perceives the work you do.

The State of Online Advertising, According to Adobe

1) In general, how do consumers "feel" about online advertising?..

2) So, what's a better alternative to online advertising? You might never guess it, but ...

3) Actually, traditional media is overwhelmingly the preferred place to view advertising

The Year of Mobile…Measurement

ClickZ reporting:
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence has gotten an early start thinking about plans and priorities for 2013. Our most recent mobile board of directors meeting last week in San Francisco included some brainstorming about big issues in Q4 2012 and into the new year.
There is still a lot to do across the board to help mobile live up to its potential as a medium for advertising and marketing. But one set of topics on the list does seem to increasingly be the priority for our members, and therefore us as well. At the risk of being premature, I will tip the IAB's hand and say that for us, 2013 will be the year of mobile measurement.
In the world of media, when we talk about "measurement" we really mean three different, but often overlapping things:
  • Planning. The metrics that help an advertiser decide where to place their ads to best reach an intended audience.
  • Currency. The metrics that determine how much the advertiser actually writes the check for.
  • Effectiveness. The metrics that prove whether an ad campaign had its intended impact on consumers' psyches or purchasing behaviors.
In the traditional media world, the planning and currency metrics are typically the same: for example, Nielsen ratings play both roles for television. In the digital world, the three kinds of metrics have generally come from distinct sources, and interaction (also known as "engagement") metrics are an increasingly important type of effectiveness measure. All three types of metrics exist for mobile, but mobile buyers and sellers need to improve, harmonize, and potentially standardize all of them.
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2220087/the-year-of-mobile-measurement?utm_source=Daily+Buzz+from+eMedia+Vitals&utm_campaign=a3015189d1-nl_DB_10_30_2012&utm_medium=email