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Wednesday, April 26, 2017
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This is how The New York Times is using bots to create more one-to-one experiences with readers“I’m not worried about this technology driving the humanity out of journalism. I’m really excited about the promise of technology bringing more humanity to journalism.” Also: a Michael Barbaro bot. By Andrew Phelps. |
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These are the bots powering Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post efforts to build a modern digital newspaper“It’s this great, simple experience, and the technology is getting so much better for it: AI’s getting better. big data’s more accessible.” Also: a Marty Baron bot. By Joey Marburger. |
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The Information’s new Briefing is a continuous update of opinionated takes on other people’s articlesBriefing is meant to be more Politico Playbook than Techmeme. It’s updated around the clock, but is also being sent out as a daily email newsletter for subscribers. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Wall Street Journal / Mike Shields
More than half of digital advertising is now mobile →
“According to a new report conducted by PwC US for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, mobile ad spending accounted for 51% of the record $72.5 billion in total U.S. digital ad spending last year.”
Search Engine Land / Danny Sullivan
Google’s ‘Project Owl’ — a three-pronged attack on fake news & problematic content →
“Google hopes to improve by better surfacing authoritative content and enlisting feedback about suggested searches and Featured Snippets answers.”
The Information / Tom Dotan
How Jeff Zucker wants to “future proof” CNN: by not calling it CNN →
“It invested in Great Big Story, an internally launched video publisher that creates a handful of short videos each week. Mr. Zucker said the company purposefully didn't include CNN as part of its name so people didn't think it was going after breaking news. And Great Big Story is successfully drawing people who aren't CNN viewers.”
TechCrunch / Josh Constine
Instagram hits 700 million users, accelerating from 600M in December →
It’s more than twice the size of Twitter, which reported better-than-expected earnings today.
ESPN Front Row / Marie Donoghue, Stephanie Druley, Rob King, John Kosner, Burke Magnus, Connor Schell and Norby Williamson
Ahead of new layoffs at ESPN, here’s its ‘content evolution strategy’ →
“In short, given how fans' habits are changing, our focus continues to be providing high-quality, distinctive content at any minute of the day on any screen.”
Digiday / Sahil Patel
In the shadow of the duopoly, media rivals are becoming allies →
“If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. As digital media sellers compete for ad dollars in a fragmented world, they're betting it's better to work together than to individually lose out on ad dollars entirely.”
The Drum / Rebecca Stewart
Snapchat Discover launches in Germany with Vice and Sky Sports as publishing partners →
“To mark the launch, Snapchat is letting users in the country decorate their selfies with interactive Snapchat Lenses featuring the publishers’ mastheads.”
The Information / Alfred Lee
Facebook is testing new discovery tools for news →
“[One] idea, which would likely expand beyond news to other types of content, is a discovery tab within Facebook's app that would surface new articles or videos from pages that users don't already follow.”
Univision
You’ll soon be seeing more Nieman Lab stories translated into Spanish →
Thanks to our new partnership with Univision News! (You can find all of our Spanish-language stories here — many more to come.)