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Wednesday, April 20, 2016
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Google News is getting its own carousel of AMP stories, and other AMP features in the worksIncluding better support for paywalled sites, richer ad formats, and ways for publishers to direct readers elsewhere on their site from within an AMP article. By Shan Wang. |
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What a group of USC students learned shooting lots of VR video (hint: duct tape is involved)The students traveled to Houston over spring break to shoot footage to accompany a ProPublica/Texas Tribune project on what a hurricane could do to the city. By Kaitlyn Mullin. |
What We’re Reading
AdExchanger / Kelly Liyakasa
Google is getting further into the TV ad business →
Also: “Basically, Google wants to be your TV Guide for OTT and linear.”
The Salt Lake Tribune / Tony Semerad
The Huntsman family is buying The Salt Lake Tribune from Digital First →
No price disclosed. The Tribune competes with the Deseret News, which is owned by the Mormon Church. Paul Huntsman: “We hope to ensure The Tribune’s independent voice for future generations and are thrilled to own a business of this quality and stature.”
YouTube / Jonathan Stray
Tips for journalists on practical digital security →
A talk given to the Kiplinger Fellows program at Ohio State earlier this month by Jonathan Stray.
VentureBeat / Paul Sawers
AOL acquires VR content studio Ryot to bring immersive video to the Huffington Post →
The fact that Ryot's website is already redirected to the Huffington Post is a clear sign of what AOL has in store for the company. The acquisition will give HuffPo a platform to present more visual-based content across linear video, VR, and 360-degree video.
Business Insider / Lara O'Reilly
Google says YouTube ads generate a better return on investment than TV most of the time →
“YouTube delivers a higher return on investment than TV in 77% of studies,” Google concluded. (The company conducted a meta-analysis of 56 case studies from brands within six different types of industries, across eight countries in Europe between 2013 and 2016, as well as its own research.)
The Guardian / Jasper Jackson
Bloomberg Business is launching a Middle East edition →
The Middle East site will have a digital editor, who will curate content from its 80-strong team covering the Middle East and from across the rest of Bloomberg. Bloomberg's new video operation, which also includes a dedicated production crew, will begin broadcasting from next month with regular reports from Abu Dhabi and a new four-day-a-week show, Bloomberg Markets: Middle East, broadcast at 8am local time.
Dataproofer
Dataproofer, a “proofreader for your data,” launched today →
“The eye test just isn’t enough.” It checks for outliers, duplicate data, and missing elements.
The Guardian / Tara Conlan
BBC News is creating a controller role for mobile and online as overhaul begins →
"If we want to reach younger people, people on lower incomes, women and black, Asian, minority ethnic communities under-served by the BBC, then we are going to have to do more to use new technologies to do so. Chief among them, mobile."
Source / Jennifer A. Stark
How a reporter investigated Uber surge pricing in D.C. →
“The data and processes that show some D.C. neighborhoods wait far longer for Uber service.”
Poynter / Melody Kramer
Ad tech is broken. Here’s how newsrooms can help fix it →
A Q&A with Salon developer Aram Zucker-Scharff
The Hollywood Reporter / Natalie Jarvey
How BuzzFeed Motion Pictures is retaining top talent →
Seven BuzzFeed employees have joined “BFMP's Development Partners program, which keeps some of BuzzFeed’s biggest stars committed to exclusive two-year contracts.”
Medium / Jennifer Brandel
The culture of journalism breeds disdain for the people we’re meant to be serving — the audience →
“We believe the survival and relevance of the news industry depends on newsrooms' ability to build meaningful relationships with the people they serve.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
The Independent app gets twice as many subscribers as its defunct print paper did →
This is starting from a low base, though — print subscribers were thought to be around 7,500. On the app, a single issue is £1.49 ($2.16), a week is £2.99 ($4.34), and a year is £149.99 ($218).
Business Insider / Will Heilpern
A writer who spent years following people whose lives were ruined by Twitter says online abuse is why the site is shrinking →
“I think the fact that Twitter is shrinking shows that when mean people take over social justice, people turn away from social justice,” Ronson explained. And Twitter has not been able to stop the “mean people” from dominating, he said. “I don’t think Twitter have addressed the problem at all,” Ronson said. “They’ve been terrible at addressing the problem.”
iTunes
Ezra Klein interviews Stratechery’s Ben Thompson (podcast) →
“Whether you can still make it as an individual blogger — Ben is showing you can, but the path has really changed; how to make money as a modern media company; Ben’s time working for Apple and Microsoft and what he learned about both companies and their cultures; why the Innovator's Dilemma is worth reading even if you think you already know what it says; why so few companies advertise on podcasts; why the most important piece of writing on your site is the second one a reader finds; and much, much more.”
The Information / Jim VandeHei
Jim VandeHei on “escaping the digital media ‘crap trap” →
“From the rubble will emerge a much better, more eclectic, more efficient way for all of us to watch, read and listen. It will be brimming with content we can be proud of—and happily pay for.”
Engine Room / Matt Chadburn & Gadi Lahav
The FT studied how its website speed impacted user engagement →
“We wanted to understand how much the speed of our website affected user engagement, specifically, the quantity of articles read, one of our key measures of success. Using that data we then wanted to quantify the impact on our revenue.”
From Fuego
Treasury’s Lew to announce Hamilton to stay on $10 bill —www.politico.com
Recent “Superman” Films Get Torn Apart | News | Dark Horizons —www.darkhorizons.com
Huntsman family to buy Salt Lake Tribune —www.politico.com
Journalism has an editing crisis, but we can do something about it —www.poynter.org
In the Spotlight: Interview with Marty Baron – Harvard Political Review —harvardpolitics.com
Fuego is our heat-seeking Twitter bot, tracking the stories the future-of-journalism crowd is talking about most. Usually those are about journalism and technology, although sometimes they get distracted by politics, sports, or GIFs. (No humans were involved in this listing, and linking is not endorsing.) Check out Fuego on the web to get up-to-the-minute news.