Mobile News Alerts, Article Progress Bars, Google Reorg, Allrecipes’ Rate Base Jump, Idealliance “Going Mobile” Briefing, Media Metrics, TFP’s Infographic Pick of the Week
Welcome to Technology for Publishing’s roundup of news and tips for media industry pros! This week, we’re sharing stories about processes for mobile news alerts, what designers think about article progress bars, Google’s reorganization under the name Alphabet, Allrecipes’ growing rate base, the upcoming Idealliance “Going Mobile” event, and more.
- As a Nieman Lab series highlights, mobile news alerts are a critical piece of the content puzzle across top newsrooms today, often requiring complex decision-making around which stories warrant notifications, when to send them, and how to best structure processes for pushing them out to readers. At the Times, one of the biggest challenges has been “to train editors’ and reporters’ brains that this isn’t print,” says editor Karron Skogone, adding that news desks have refined the process over the years, with a focus on increasing speed and usefulness to readers. For CNN, mobile news alerts tie its platforms together—including television. Meanwhile, for the NBC-owned Breaking News app, it’s all about staying ahead of emerging news. Staff have developed a variety of notifications, allowing readers to choose from some 50,000 different topics and to receive alerts based on their proximity to events. With mobile increasingly driving news, this is a great read for all editorial staff.
- Some publishers are using progress bars on their article pages to show readers how far along they are in stories, but designers in general don’t like them, according to Digiday. Sites that use the feature, including Bloomberg and The Daily Beast, maintain that it enhances the reader’s experience by enabling more control. Design folks, though, say not so much. In their view, unless used for long-form content or to serve a specific audience or strategy, progress bars are just a plain nuisance. Charming Robot CEO Dan Maccarone, for one, called the feature “gimmicky” and “distracting” in the report, noting that sites like Medium have a better idea: Simply tell readers how long it will take to read a story.
- Google announced that it has reorganized itself under a holding company called Alphabet, although its core advertising and media business will keep the Google name, according to an Adweek report. It says the move places the likes of Nest, Google X, and Google Ventures under the Alphabet umbrella, providing more transparency around investments in “side businesses” that aren’t currently making a lot of money. Although the Times said details about how financial resources will be shared among the various parts of the conglomerate are still murky, the move generally received positive reaction, with industry observers saying it will drive greater innovation across all businesses.
- While a just released industry report shows print is continuing to slide overall, Meredith’s digital-to-print brand Allrecipes is bucking the trend. It announced that its September/October 2015 issue will hit a rate base of 1.25 million—a 150% jump over the magazine’s 500,000 rate base at launch in November 2013. In a Folio report, publisher Steven Grune said the title’s success demonstrates “the tremendous value and passionate connection consumers still have with magazines.”
- Save the date! In case you missed our announcement last week, Technology for Publishing is sponsoring the Idealliance Tech & Trends “Going Mobile” industry briefing on Sept. 10 in New York. The event, hosted by Hearst and co-sponsored by WoodWing and MarkLogic, will bring together publishing industry strategists, technologists, product managers, and production specialists to discuss technologies and best practices that can help you successfully develop and deploy digital content for mobile. Visit Idealliance’s site to reserve your spot.
- On the Technology for Publishing blog: TFP’s latest Media Metrics roundup covers search results for mobile-friendly sites, magazine circulation in the first half, the impact of ad-blocking software on advertising revenue, and much more.
- Effective networking centers on relationship building, often starting with a single email conversation. Our Infographic Pick of the Week looks at how to write a networking email that gets a response instead of ending up in the trash.
- You can now download our Adobe Digital Publishing Solution infographic highlighting what you need to know about the new publishing tool—check it out and tell us what you think!
Image: Nieman Lab
Check out our blog for highlights of interesting and noteworthy stories from the publishing world every Friday, and sign up for TFP’s This Week in Publishing newsletter. Think we missed something great? Let us know! Leave a comment below or drop us a note.
Posted by: Monica Sambataro
