PRIMEX Highlights, Shutdown of Tech Blog Gigaom, How Quartz Is Embracing Uncertainty, ‘Not There’ Ad Campaign, Media Metrics, TFP’s Infographic Pick of the Week, InDesign CC Tip: Open Documents Created in Newer Versions
Welcome to TFP’s roundup of news and tips for media industry pros! This week, we’re sharing stories about insights shared at the IDEAlliance PRIMEX conference, the end of tech blog Gigaom, how the publisher of Quartz is embracing uncertainty and responding to change, the Clinton Foundation’s International Women’s Day Ad Campaign, and more.
- Technology for Publishing CEO Margot Knorr Mancini attended IDEAlliance’s PRIMEX media conference, which this year focused on, among other things, the power of print, the impact of consolidation, the dynamics of newsstand distribution, and the move to multi-channel workflows and digital. A number of industry executives shared valuable insights, including Daniel Knotts, COO of RR Donnelley, who discussed how publishers need to respond to the ways users want to interact with content across all media. Also, TNG President David Parry detailed how the company worked quickly to recover from last year’s newsstand disruption after Source Interlink Distribution abruptly shut down, while National Geographic CTO Jonathan Young offered some refreshing thoughts on taking risks, finding success, and lessons learned.
- Sadly, tech blog Gigaom unexpectedly announced Monday that it was shutting down, releasing a statement indicating that it was unable to pay creditors in full. “It is not how you want the story of a company you founded to end,” said Om Malik, who officially started the technology-focused news outlet in 2006. Claiming 6.4 million monthly readers, the site was supported by tech conferences, a white-paper research business, and some advertising, according to the Times. Among other media reflections on what went wrong, a Digiday report said the site’s demise should be “read as a cautionary tale of the risks of taking VC funding.”
- Today’s media world is indeed ever shifting, meaning there’s no time to “pine for the past,” remarked Quartz publisher Jay Lauf at the Digital Media Strategies 2015 conference. Telling attendees that only those companies embracing uncertainty and change will survive, he shared his thoughts on everything from the death of the homepage to the need to develop for mobile first. A report from Media Briefing covered where Lauf is taking Quartz and how the company is continually reinventing itself.
Working on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, ad agency Droga5 removed the images of women from 40 existing advertisements, posters, and other media on International Women’s Day to bring attention to the foundation’s “Not There” campaign against gender inequality and its No Ceilings report on the status of women and girls around the world. The New York Times said Condé Nast, Beats, and other companies allowed their existing ads to be switched out for the altered ones in what it called a purpose-driven campaign, an increasingly popular marketing technique being used among top brands to cut through “the barrage of media clutter.”- On the Technology for Publishing blog: This month’s Media Metrics roundup examines a spike in ‘phablet’ usage, a decline in newsstand sales, and the must-have component of native advertising, among other topics.
- TFP’s Infographic Pick of the Week provides a broad view of native advertising, from who’s buying it and where ad dollars are being spent to measurement metrics, barriers, and more.
- If you want to open InDesign files created in newer versions, you can do the conversion with a single click from within CS6 or InDesign CC. Check out our latest Tip blog for details.
Image: The New York Times/Droga5
This Week in Publishing appears every Friday on the TFP blog. Every week we compile interesting and noteworthy stories from the publishing world and put together a wrap-up to help our readers stay up-to-date. Think we missed something great? Leave a comment below and let us know!
Posted by: Monica Sambataro
