The Media Oxpecker: August 10, 2012
august 10, 2012 01:12 pm
Every week we round up industry news you may have missed while you were busy getting boutiquey.
- "The web audience is now growing much faster than the flight of dead-tree readers is occurring," writes PaidContent's Robert Andrews, who says that November 2010 was the point when the web audience of U.K. newspapers overtook print circulation.
But will the money follow? Ryan Chittum deciphers the Washington Post's latest earnings report, which revealed an overall revenue drop of 5 percent last quarter. "If there was good news in newspapers, it's that digital ads returned to positive territory," he says.
Demand Media – which is behind such sites as eHow and Cracked – turned a profit for the first time in the same quarter.
And Street Fight says money is starting to flow to hyperlocal sites and mobile advertising.
- Two great pieces from former GOOD editor and national treasure Ann Friedman this week: "What journalists need to know about animated GIFs — really" and "Journalists vs. Curators":
Many media companies are thriving because they're striking a balance between original reporting and curation. See: The Huffington Post, which has a reputation as an evil aggregator but whose beat reporters routinely break stories. Or The Atlantic, one of the country’s oldest thought-leader publications, which has an entire vertical (The Atlantic Wire) that relies on linking out and piggybacking on stories and conversations started elsewhere … The success of these sites proves that curation is its own skill, and a valuable one at that.
- Remember last week when we told you about how the NAHJ prohibited a student journalist from live-tweeting its open board meeting? The new board of directors rescinded that policy on its first day.
- Consumers are showing a high tolerance for viewing online video ads:
According to a new report from the video monetization firm FreeWheel, the online video environment is increasingly mimicking the experience of the age-old television ad model, as the standard pre-roll spot is giving way to a far more comprehensive break structure.
- Daily deals are coming to your car.
- Local search products have focused on recreational needs like restaurants and bars, but are they ignoring a potentially lucrative market for other consumer needs?
We all have our favorite restaurants, but what if you need a roofer, or a CPA, or an intellectual property attorney? These less common searches, what we might call the long tail of local search, represent a large, and largely untapped, portion of the activity that could be much better served by mobile and online services.
- Video: Ben Huh re-imagines news for the mobile generation.
- The New York Times' hit piece on Lolo Jones says more about crass sexism in the media industry than it does about the crass commercialization of the Olympics, writes Mac McClelland.
- And finally, don't call her the former editor of the Santa Fe Reporter. Julia Goldberg shares the story of "How I Quit My Job And Found Myself."
