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Wednesday, May 10, 2017
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Mixed reality, computer vision, and brain–machine interfaces: Here’s the future The New York Times’ reborn R&D lab sees“The New York Times is not going to build a self-driving car, but if we see that technology as being inevitable, we should have a strategy for how The New York Times will fit into it.” By Ricardo Bilton. |
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How Germany’s Die Zeit is trying to reach a younger audience (while also putting up a paywall)“Sometimes people think there is only one strategy: theirs. I think that is wrong. Everyone needs to look for their own solution.” By Joseph Lichterman. |
What We’re Reading
The Hollywood Reporter / Natalie Jarvey
NBCUniversal acquires majority ownership of Craftsy →
“The media and entertainment company has acquired a majority stake in Craftsy, an instruction website for cooking, baking, knittng and other hobbies, for an undisclosed price.”
CNN / Rishi Iyengar
India’s newspapers are thriving despite global pressure on print →
“Circulation increased by more than 23 million copies a day between 2006 and 2016, according to a new report from India’s Audit Bureau of Circulation. That’s average growth of nearly 5% per year.”
NewsMediaWorks
Journalists at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age returned to work after a weeklong strike →
“Upon returning to work, staff members received an email outlining the company's code of conduct. They were told that belittling colleagues who did not participate in the strike on social media, intimidation to coerce staff into strike action, and encouraging the public boycotting of Fairfax products was, in some cases, grounds for dismissal.”
CNN / Dylan Byers
Wall Street Journal adds 300,000 subscribers in the past year →
“But the Journal is celebrating subscriber growth. The paper added 305,000 daily digital subscribers in the year between March 31, 2016 and March 31, 2017, according to an SEC filing from its parent company News Corp. The Journal’s competitors at the Times, meanwhile, announced 308,000 new digital news subscriptions in just the first three months of 2017.”
Recode / Rani Molla
The New York Times’ digital business more than doubled in the past six years →
“So how is its digital business doing overall? For the past six years, Times' digital revenue (subscribers and ads) more than doubled to $442 million. Print-only revenue fell 18 percent to just over $1 billion in the same period. In 2015 Times' leadership announced that they aimed to hit $800 million in overall digital revenue by 2020 — a goal that will be difficult at best.”
Digiday
Spiegel Online has a 10-person Snapchat Discover team →
“Ten people is a big investment for the company, especially given Snapchat is new and therefore relatively unproven in the German market. But while Spiegel Online has 18.3 million monthly online users (source: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Online Forschung, Germany's equivalent to comScore), it struggles to reach the young audience that are Snapchat's core users.”
Journalism.co.uk / Madalina Ciobanu
Inside the FT’s approach to online comments and audience participation →
“Instead of just deleting the inappropriate or offensive comments or ignoring them, [community manager Lilah] Raptopoulos and the team of moderators at the FT jumped in to remind people about the commenting guidelines of the organisation. When a comment did get deleted, moderators would explain why that decision has been made and that they should be more respectful towards their peers. The tone shifted quickly and led to many contributions from female readers working in finance.”
Smashing Magazine / Nick Babich
Here are some pros and cons for basic patterns of mobile navigation →
“Different navigation patterns have been devised to solve this challenge in different ways, but they all suffer from a variety of usability problems. In this article, we'll examine five basic navigation patterns for mobile apps and describe the strengths and weaknesses of each of them.”
Poynter / Melody Kramer
In North Carolina, these two women are bringing journalists closer to the public →
“News Voices wants to make North Carolina ‘a model for the future of news’ by bringing listening and community engagement to the forefront of North Carolina's local newsrooms to create what Fiona Morgan calls ‘a virtuous cycle of trust, quality news and sustainable media.'”
The Washington Post / Samantha Schmidt
West Virginia journalist arrested after asking HHS Secretary Tom Price a question →
"This is my job, this is what I'm supposed to do," Dan Heyman said. "I think it's a question that deserves to be answered. I think it's my job to ask questions and I think it's my job to try to get answers."
The Hollywood Reporter / Etan Vlessing and Georg Szalai
Tribune Media saw a $17 million drop in advertising at its TV stations →
$13.7 million of that drop was in political advertising.
IAB
Only 46% of Americans “TV screen time” is spent watching traditional linear programming →
“The largest share of that non-linear time is spent streaming digital video (20%), which can include network TV shows, subscription service original shows, or original digital video content. The remaining viewing time is devoted to: watching programming via DVR recording (15%), Video on Demand (6%), and downloaded video (5%), in addition to another 8 percent that is uncategorized.”
CNNMoney / Dylan Byers
The Wall Street Journal added 300K new subs in the first quarter →
That’s a combination of print and digital. The New York Times announced last weekthat it added 308,000 net new digital subscribers in the first three months of 2017.