Media

Media properties’ new formula: Publish … re-publish … and publish yet again.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Media , , , , , , ,

RepublishingAs media properties have moved away from finite schedules of daily, weekly or monthly publication to something more akin to 24/7 content dissemination, it’s becoming quite a challenge to deliver new content.

The reality is, building a digital media property in today’s “always on” world that can successfully deliver new, original content on an ongoing basis is quite costly.

In fact, it’s economically unfeasible for many if not most publishing enterprises.

This explains why readers have started to see a parade of news items that have been reused, recycled or repurposed in an effort to present the items as “fresh” news multiple times over.

This is happening with greater regularly, and it’s seemingly getting more prevalent with every passing day.

Here’s a representative case:  Business Insider.  This finance and news site has doubled its traffic over the past several years.  Business Insider now attracts more than 12 million unique visitors each month – each of them presumably interested in consuming “fresh news.”

But for content that is fairly “evergreen” in nature, Business Insider is perfectly content to serve up the same (or nearly similar) stories two … three … four times or more.

For example, one of its stories, “Facts About McDonald’s That Will Blow Your Mind,” has been published no fewer than six times over a span of three years.

The various iterations of that article varied very little each time.  Sometimes there were a different number of facts presented (usually 15 or 16).  Business Insider even published the identical list twice in the same year, using the exact same headline while revising only the introductory paragraph.

Beyond the fact that publishing essentially the same article six times within three years took some of the burden off the news-gathering and writing team, it turns out that topics such as this one really do engage readers — time and again.

Business Insider’s first iteration of the McDonald’s article attracted more than 2.5 million views.  And overall, the story has been clicked on more than 8 million times.

(Of course, the final time the article ran, the story generated only around 400,000 views, so at some point the law of diminishing returns had to come into play.)

articleI like another example, too:  Cosmopolitan Magazine.  In April of this year, it published an article titled “25 Life-Changing Ways to Use Q-tips.”  That story generated only 44 shares — hardly earth-shattering results for a media property with over 3 million subscribers.

But then Cosmopolitan promoted the article on Pinterest in May … and also on Twitter in May and again in June … and on Facebook in early May and again there in early June.

Whereas Cosmopolitan’s original posting of the article on its own website didn’t result in much engagement to speak of, just the two Facebook posts resulted in nearly 1,500 shares.

With these kinds of results being generated, it’s no wonder publishers have decided to “publish … re-publish … and then publish again.”

So the next time you have a sensation of déjà vu about reading an article, chances are, you’re not dreaming.

Print magazine startups: Hope springs eternal.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing Communications , , , , , , , , , , , ,

print publicationsI’ve blogged before about the number of print magazine launches versus closures in the age of the Internet.

Now the latest report from media database clearinghouse Oxbridge Communications shows that when it comes to this most traditional form of media … hope springs eternal.

In fact, Oxbridge is reporting that in the first half of this year, new magazine start-ups outstripped those that ceased publication – and by a substantial margin.

The Oxbridge database, which includes U.S. and Canadian publications, shows that 93 magazines were launched in the first half of 2014, versus just 30 that were shuttered.

True, this represents a lower number of start-ups than is the historical average … but it’s also a lower number of closures.

What specialty audiences are being targeted by these new pubs?

In the continuation of an existing trend, there’s growth in new “regional interest” magazines such as 12th & Broad (aimed at the creative community in the Nashville metro area) and San Francisco Cottages & Gardens.

Food and drink is another category of growing interest, with publications like Barbecue America and Craft Beer & Brewing hitting the streets for the first time.

And why not?  Despite ever-changing consumer tastes and interests, all of us continue to share at least one fundamental trait:  We eat!

But on a cautionary note, the smaller list of magazine closures do include two vaunted “historic” titles:  Jet (Johnson Publishing) and Ladies’ Home Journal (Meredith).

These closures underscore the point that the magazine industry shakeup continues – and who knows what other famous titles might cease publication during the second half of the year.

As for the biggest reason behind the magazine closures … isn’t it obvious?  It’s decreased advertising revenue.

Continuing a trend that’s been happening for the better part of a decade now, Publishers Information Bureau reports that total magazine ad pages declined another 4% in the First Quarter of 2014 as compared to the same quarter of last year.

For the record, that’s 28,567 ad pages for all U.S. and Canadian publications.

While that figure may seem like a healthy total, it’s not enough to sustain the total number of publications out there.

The harsh reality is that print journalism remains dramatically more expensive than digital production.  Unless a magazine can obtain enough subscribers to justify its ad rates, the only other way it can survive is to cover its costs via a “no-advertising” business model.

The vast majority of subscribers will never pay the full cost to produce a print publication.  And with more free information resources than ever available to them online, many people aren’t particularly inclined to commit to even a subsidized subscription rate.

Indeed, the wealth of free information means it’s more difficult these days even to get qualified business readers to subscribe to free B-to-B pubs that target their own industry or markets.

What changing dynamics would portend a shift in the downward trajectory?  It would be nice to anticipate a bottoming-out followed by a turnaround.

Unfortunately, if the past five years have demonstrated anything, it’s that there may be no “natural bottom” when it comes to diminishing advertising revenues in the print magazine business.

Craigslist: The $5 billion juggernaut that crippled an industry.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing Communications, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Craigslist logoIt’s common knowledge that the business model for newspapers started going awry in a major way with the decline in newspaper classified advertising.

Craigslist played a huge role in that development, as the online classifieds site went about methodically entering one urban market after another across the United States.

And now we have quantification of just how impactful Craigslist’s role was.  It comes in the form of a May 2013 study authored by Robert Seamans of New York University’s Stern School of Business and Feng Zhu of the University of Southern California.

Titled Responses to Entry in Multi-Sided Markets:  The Impact of Craigslist on Local Newspapers, the study explored the dynamics at play over the period 2000-2007, focusing on newspapers’ degree of reliance on classifieds at the time of Craigslist’s entry into their markets.

What the researchers found was that those newspapers that relied heavily on classified ads for revenue experienced more than a 20% decline in classified advertising rates following Craigslist’s entry into their markets.

But that isn’t all:  The outmigration of classified advertising to Craigslist was accompanied by other negative trend lines — an increase of subscription prices (up 3%+) and lowering circulation figures (down nearly 5%).

Even newspaper display advertising rates fell by approximately 3%.

Were these developments “cause” or “effect”?  The study’s authors posit that fewer classified ads may have diminished the incentive for people to purchase the newspapers.  Also, display advertising rates tend to track circulation figures, so once the “decline cycle” started, it was bound to continue.

The study concludes that by offering buyers and sellers a free classified ad alternative to paid listings in newspapers, Craigslist saved users approximately $5 billion over the seven-year period.

Those dollars came right out of the hides of the newspapers, of course … and changed the print newspaper industry for good.

But here’s the thing:  The experience of the newspaper industry has relevance beyond just them.  “The boundaries between media industries are blurred and advertisers are able to reach consumers through a variety of platforms such as TV, the Internet and mobile devices,” the authors write.

The unmistakable message to others in the media is this:  It could happen to you, too.

A full summary of the Seamans/Zhu report can be found here.

To Find Newspaper Readers in the United States … Head East

Phillip Nones Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , ,

Newspaper stackThe news about newspaper readership rates has been uniformly bleak over the past decade or so.

In fact, readership rates for daily print newspaper have declined almost 20% since 2001, according to trend studies conducted by market research firm Scarborough.

Today, national daily print newspaper readership rates stand at around 37% of adults, down from ~50% just a dozen years ago.

Interestingly however, there are distinct differences in readership rates based on geography. 

Readership appears to be highest in the Northeast and Industrial Midwest regions, whereas it’s significantly lower than the national average across the Southeast, Texas and the Pacific Southwest.

Which metropolitan market takes top honors for readership? It’s Pittsburgh, where ~51% of the adult population reads daily print newspapers.

Other high readership rates are found in a cluster of markets within a 250-mile radius of Pittsburgh, it turns out:

  • Pittsburgh Metro Area: ~51% of adults read daily print newspapers
  • Albany/Schenectady/Troy Metro: ~49%
  • Hartford/New Haven Metro: ~49%
  • Cleveland Metro: ~48%
  • Buffalo/Niagara Fall Metro: ~47%
  • New York City Metro: ~47%
  • Toledo Metro: ~47%

Only one other metropolitan market charts daily newspaper readership as high: Honolulu, at ~47% adult readership.

Highest and Lowest Daily Newspaper Readership by Major Metropolitan Market
(Source: AdvertisingAge Magazine)

At the other end of the scale are various Sunbelt urban markets. Here are the five metropolitan areas that bring up the rear when it comes to the lowest daily newspaper readership rates:

  • Atlanta Metro Area: ~23% of adults read daily print newspapers
  • Houston/Galveston Metro: ~24%
  • San Antonio Metro: ~24%
  • Las Vegas Metro: ~26%
  • Bakersfield Metro: ~26%

What’s the cause of these geographic discrepancies?

It may be age demographics, which tend to skew younger in these Sunbelt markets.

Perhaps it’s the ethnic composition of the markets – although pretty much all of them on both lists have diverse populations.

So I turn the question over to the readers:  If you have any insights (or even simply suspicions) to share, I welcome your comments.

It’s Official: Instagram is in the Big Leagues Now

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , ,
Thanksgiving Day 2012 on Instagram
Thanksgiving Day 2012 broke all records for Instagram’s photo sharing volume, with over 10 million photos shared and more than 225 per second at its peak.

Instagram, the mobile photo sharing service that came on the scene about two years ago, has been quietly building a following among many people who are attracted to its simplicity and ease of use, along with the enhanced image quality it offers. 

This past Thanksgiving proves how important Instagram has become within the social media fabric.  On Thanksgiving Day, fully 10 million photos were shared on Instagram.

At its peak time at 3:40 pm (Eastern Standard Time), photos were being shared at a rate of ~225 per second.  and throughout the the peak dinner hours from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm EST, more than 200 photos per second were being shared.

According to Instagram’s statistics, Thanksgiving Day was the busiest in the service’s history, which normally has about 5 million photos uploaded per day.

Facebook, which acquired Instagram in September, sees far more photo uploads on its flagship social platform – around 300 million images per day – which makes Instagram a relative babe in the woods. 

But Facebook looks to have big plans for Instagram, including a goal of doubling the number of app users from ~100 million to ~200 million.

Clearly, Instagram is one social platform that merits following in the months ahead.  Now that it’s joined the rarified ranks of the other platforms that have broken through to the “big leagues,” it’ll be interesting to see where Instagram goes from here and how it monetizes itself.

The “Digital Natives” are Restless …

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Digital Natives, Digital Multi-tasking“Digital natives” is a term used to describe consumers who have grown up with mobile technology as part of their daily lives – essentially people age 25 and younger.

And man, do these whippersnappers behave differently than the rest of us! “A Biometric Day in the Life,” a newly released research study from Time, Inc., reveals how the myriad digital devices and platforms are affecting the media consumption habits of the Digital Natives compared to the rest of the population.

The salient finding from the Time research: On average, Digital Natives switch their attention between various media platforms a whopping 27 times in a single hour. That’s nearly once every other minute.

[For purposes of the analysis, media platforms includes television, magazines, desktop computers, tablets, smartphones, as well as channels within platforms.]

What’s the impact of this “multi-tasking to the max” behavior? The Time study posits that Digital Natives’ emotional engagement with content is less involved and more constrained.

In fact, the study concludes that these people tend to use media to regulate their mood; if they grow tired or bored, they switch to something else.

The study’s comparison of Digital Natives’ interaction with their digital devices to the rest of the population is also instructive. Natives tend to divide their time equally between digital and non-digital media, whereas the rest of us spend about two-thirds of our time with non-digital media.

Moreover, Digital Natives are significantly more likely to take their devices from room to room with them when they are at home (~65% versus ~40% for the rest of the population). One natural result of this tendency is that it makes switching platforms even easier.

And what about texting? Nearly nine out of ten Digital Natives report that they send or receive text messages on a typical day (compared to half of the rest of the population).

In fact, more than half of Digital Natives state that they “prefer texting people rather than talking to them.” Fewer than 30% of the rest of us feel that way.

Social media behaviors are similar; ~80% of Digital Natives report that they access Facebook at least once per day – far greater than rest of the population accesses (~57%).

The Time survey’s findings suggest that the traditional way of delivering marketing messages with a clear “beginning, middle and end” may be morphing into something dramatically different from what we’ve known.

Dr. Carl Marci, CEO and chief scientist at Innerscope Research as well as a staff psychiatrist as Massachusetts General Hospital, has made several interesting observations about the Time study:

 Patterns of visual attention and emotional consequences may be changing as a result of modern media consumption.

 The brains of a new generation of Americans may be becoming “rewired.”

 Marketers are facing an increasingly complex media environment, making it harder to reach and engage their target audiences.

If Dr. Marci’s observations are accurate, things are going to get much less predictable – and a lot more challenging – for marketers.

Pew Monitors Changing Views about the News Media

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

News media organizations losing luster with Americans
News organizations are losing their luster with Americans, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Pew Research Center for People and the Press has been surveying American adults since 1985 about their views of the news media.

A new comprehensive report, incorporating results up to and including field surveys conducted in 2011, finds that negative opinions about the performance of news media are higher than ever on nine of twelve key measures studied.

Here are some sobering stats from this year’s consumer pulse:

 ~66% of respondents believe that news stories are often inaccurate
 ~77% think that news organizations tend to favor one side over another politically
 ~80% believe that news organizations are influenced by powerful people and organizations

The findings on the accuracy of news reporting are particularly striking. As few as four years ago, ~39% of respondents felt that news organizations “mostly get the facts straight” while ~53% believed that the news stories were “often inaccurate.”

Today’s those numbers look more depressing: Only ~25% say that news organizations tend to get the facts straight, while ~66% contend that news stories are often inaccurate.

[Of course, when it comes to respondents’ own preferred news outlets, the figures don’t look nearly as dismal. In fact, nearly two thirds of the respondents believe their preferred news sources get the facts mostly correct.]

Who does the public see as the leading “news media” these days? Cable TV organizations clearly lead in the rankings, with network news now pushed down the list:

 ~43% named CNN as a “news organization”
 ~39% named Fox News
 ~18% named NBC News
 ~16% named ABC News
 ~12% named CBS News
 ~12% named MSNBC
 ~10% named local TV news

It’s been a long fall for CBS News in particular, which was once considered the ace news broadcast network in the United States.

In general terms, who do people trust most as a source of news? The answer may be surprising to some: Top-ranked are local news organizations:

 Local news organizations: ~69% of people have “a lot” or “some” trust
 National news organizations: ~59%
 State government: ~51%
 Presidential administration: ~50%
 Federal government agencies: ~44%
 Business corporations: ~41%
 U.S. Congress: ~37%
 Political candidates: ~29%

And as far as where people go for news, TV and the Internet continue to be the top two sources. But consider how those rankings have changed. Five years ago, TV was cited by 74% of survey respondents as one of the two top news sources … but that figure has now declined to ~66%.

As for the Internet, it’s grown from ~24% saying it’s a top-two source for news in 2007, to ~43% today.

Meanwhile, newspapers are staying on the decline … so that today, only ~31% of respondents place them among the two top sources of news. Newspapers continue to have their partisans among the over-65 age segment, but younger than this, it’s just a lost cause.

But there’s one bright spot for newspapers: They continue to be recognized as a leading source of local news. This helps explain why many small-town and local papers have been better able to navigate the choppy waters of newspaper publishing better than their big-city counterparts.

There are many more interesting findings outlined in the latest Pew news organization survey. For more details, click here.

Dumb and Dumber: Internet Explorer Users, the Media and the AptiQuant Hoax

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The AptiQuant "Dumb IE Users" Research has more than one news organization with egg on its face.
AptiQuant's "Not-so-smart IE users" research brief leaves more than one news organization with egg on its face.
You may have read the news reports a few weeks ago of a study conducted by a Canadian research company that “concluded” that Internet Explorer users have lower IQs than users of other browsers like Firebox and Safari.

The “news release” was peppered with authentic-looking charts and graphs that supposedly provided backup for the conclusions, which purportedly came from online IQ testing of ~100,000 individuals found randomly through searches and Internet advertising.

Not surprisingly, the news that IE users are somehow “dumber” than the “bright bulbs” who use the supposedly more “hip” Chrome, Opera, Safari and Firefox browsers hit the newswires like a brick.

I saw reports on the research all over the place – from the BBC and Huffington Post to Yahoo, the New York Times, Forbes and MediaPost.

… And then, a week or so after the story burst on the scene, it began to fall apart.

One intrepid BBC reporter dug into the story deeper, and discovered in the process that AptiQuant, the Vancouver-based organization billed as a “psychometric consulting company” that supposedly conducted the survey, is an entity with no traceable presence back beyond just a few weeks prior to the deployment of its research findings.

Not only that, the AptiQuant website had been set up only a few days prior … and the site’s professional-looking photos lifted wholesale from a legitimate Paris-based consulting firm.

Curious, I trolled around online to find the original research brief released by AptiQuant. It seems to me that anyone reading the study’s conclusions would smell a rat.

True, the statistical data appear impressive enough. But no research organization worth its salt is going to make comments such as the following a part of its research conclusions, and I quote:

The study showed a substantial relationship between an individual’s cognitive ability and their choice of web browser. From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers. This hypothesis can be extended to any software in general ….

It is common knowledge that Internet Explorer Versions 6.0 to 8.0 are highly incompatible with modern web standards. In order to make websites work properly on these browsers, web developers have to spend a lot of unnecessary effort. This results in an extra financial strain on web projects, and has over the last decade cost millions of man-hours to IT companies. Now that we have a statistical pattern on the continuous usage of incompatible browsers, better steps can be taken to eradicate this nuisance.Nuisance? I mean, really!

A few days later, the perpetrators of the phony research report came forward and admitted as much. AptiQuant’s purported CEO, a person using the moniker “Leonard Howard,” laid the cards on the table:

“The main purpose behind this hoax was to create awareness about the incompatibilities of IE6 and how it is pulling back innovation. So, if you are still using IE6, please update to a newer browser. We got this idea when adding some features to our comparison shopping site … we found out that IE6 was highly incompatible with web standards. IE 7.0 and 8.0, though better than 6.0, are still incompatible with not only the standards, but with each other, too.”

It was also noted that “telltale signs that should have uncovered the hoax in less than five minutes” included the following red flags:

• The AptiQuant domain was registered only on July 14, 2011

• The IQ test that was referenced in the report (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale IV test) is copyrighted and cannot be administered online

• The company address listed on the report does not exist

• Much of the content on the website was ripped from other sites – including the photo images

• The website was developed using the WordPress platform, which would be highly unusual for any credible consulting firmBeyond the fact that “Mr. Howard & Co.” must have had way too much spare time on their hands … I think it’s interesting – and sobering – to witness how many reputable news organizations took this report and ran with it without so much as a minute of fact-checking – or even picking up the phone to get an additional quote from an AptiQuant company spokesperson.

… Especially since the topic and the conclusions drawn – namely, that some people are dumber than others – were bound to be controversial.

In the “old days,” a story like this would be lucky to be published in single outlet, if at all. But in today’s “brave new world” of online news, it took mere hours for the news to bound about the Internet and show up on dozens of legitimate news sites … thereby enabling the story to take on a “legitimate” life of its own.

I wonder what’ll be next. Because it’s sure to happen again.

Twitter’s World: Click … or Clique?

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Twitter traffic: dominateed by a tiny fraction of users.
Half of all tweets are generated by fewer than one-half of one percent of Twitter accounts.
What’s happening these days with Twitter? The micro-blogging service continues to light up the newswires every time there’s a civil disturbance in a foreign land, because of how easily and effectively it facilitates planning and interaction among the dissidents.

But what we’re also finding out is that Twitter is overwhelmingly dominated by just a small fraction of its users.

In fact, Cornell University and Yahoo recently published results of an evaluation of ~260 million tweets during 2009 and 2010, which found that ~50% of the tweets were generated by just 20,000 Twitter users.

That is right: Fewer than one half of one percent of Twitter’s user base accounts for fully half of all tweet activity.

Just who makes up this “rarified realm” of elite users? It turns out that they fall into four major groups:

 Media properties (e.g., CNN, New York Times)
 Celebrities (e.g., Ashton Kutcher … Lady Gaga)
 Business organizations (e.g., Starbucks)
 Blogs

Even more interestingly, these “elite” users aren’t interfacing with the rest of us “regular Twitter folk” as much as they are simply following each other: Celebs follow celebs … media companies follow other media companies … bloggers follow other blogs.

The Cornell/Yahoo research report, titled Who Says What to Whom on Twitter, can be found here.

But one wonders if the report should be retitled Much Ado About Nothing?

Click Wars Opening Round: Plaintiffs 1; Facebook 0

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve blogged before about the issue of click fraud, which has many companies wondering what portion of their pay-per-click campaigns are simply wasted effort.

Until now, Google has been the biggest target of blame … but now we’re seeing Facebook in the thick of it also.

It’s only been in the past year that Facebook has made a real run for the money when it comes to paid search advertising. There are some very positive aspects to Facebook’s advertising program, which can target where ads are served based on behavioral and psychographic factors from the Facebook profiles of members and their friend networks. This is something Google has had a difficult time emulating. (Not that they haven’t been trying … which is what the new Google +1 beta offering is all about.)

But now, Facebook is the target of a lawsuit from a number of advertisers who contend that there are major discrepancies between Facebook’s click volume and the companies’ own analytics programs which suggest that the purported clickthrough activity is significantly inflated.

As an example of one company that is a party to the lawsuit, sports fan site RootZoo alleges that on a single day in June 2010, its software programs reported ~300 clicks generated by Facebook … but Facebook charged RootZoo for ~800 clicks instead.

While contesting the allegations vigorously, Facebook’s attorneys have also argued against the company having to disclose the source code or other details of how it calculates clickthrough activity, citing fears that the proprietary information could be leaked to outside parties (competitors) as well.

But that argument fell on deaf ears this past week. Instead, Facebook has been ordered by the U.S. District Court in San Jose, CA to disclose a wide range of data, including its source code for systems to identify and filter out invalid clicks.

In making this decision, Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd stated, “The source code in this case implemented Facebook’s desired filtering, and whether that filtering [has] lived up to Facebook’s claims and contractual obligations is the issue here.”

This ruling appears to call into question the sweeping terms and conditions that Facebook advertisers are required to sign before beginning a media program. The relevant language states: “I understand that third parties may generate impressions, clicks or other actions affecting the cost of the advertising for fraudulent or improper purposes, and I accept the risk of any such impressions, clicks or other actions.”

[This isn’t the only incidence of Facebook’s broad and restrictive stipulations; another particularly obnoxious one deals with “ownership” of content posted on Facebook pages – basically, the content creator gives up all rights of control — even if the content came to Facebook through a third-party source.]

But in this particular case, evidently the terms and conditions language isn’t sweeping enough, as Judge Lloyd ruled that the plaintiffs can sue on the basis of “invalid” clicks, if not “fraudulent” ones.

Touché! Score one for the judges against the lawyers!

Of course, it’s way too soon to know how this particular case is going to play out – or whether it’ll even get to court. It’s far more likely that Facebook will settle with the plaintiffs so as not to have to disclose its source code and other “trade secrets” — the very things that cause so many marketers to see paid search advertising as a gigantic black hole of mystery that is rigged against the advertisers no matter what.

But one thing is easy to predict: This won’t be the last time the issue of pay-per-click advertising is brought before the courts. Whether the target is Facebook, Google or Bing, these skirmishes are bound to be part of the business landscape for months and years to come.