Women’s Media Strike, Uber’s ‘Content Marketplace,’ HuffPost Reorg, Content Studio Challenges, InDesign CC Tip: Easy Access to Adobe Stock Search
Welcome to Technology for Publishing’s roundup of news, stories of interest, and tips for media industry pros! This week, we’re sharing posts about how women’s media outlets approached “The Day Without Women” strike, Uber’s plan to boost customer engagement with a “marketplace” of third-party content, how HuffPost is refocusing on its mission, the challenges of running content studios, and more.
On International Women’s Day, women from around the world took the day off from paid and unpaid work “to put an economic price on women’s political power,” as Vanity Fair reports. To cover “The Day Without Women” strike, women’s media outlets took one of two approaches: They either published content related to the day’s events or went on strike themselves. According to WWD, sites including The Cut, Bustle, and Bustle sister pub Romper decided on the latter—meaning no women, no content. The Cut’s Stella Bugbee says her publication opted to strike “as a sign of solidarity with women everywhere as we face the potential rollback of fundamental rights.” At Bustle, the event was a “paid volunteer day,” allowing staffers to refrain from producing content and instead volunteer at organizations that help women and other groups.- TechCrunch recently learned Uber is planning to make its app a “content marketplace” from which riders can engage with a feed of “cards” offering third-party entertainment and other features. Based on a new version of Uber’s Trip Experiences feature, the marketplace will offer location information, entertainment, integration with productivity apps, and communications with the specific places riders are traveling to. According to the report, the rollout, expected in April, provides an opportunity for content providers and others to target the growing number of Uber users—and of course for Uber to launch new revenue-share deals with content partners that want to appear in the feed.
- New Huffington Post EIC Lydia Polgreen says she’s staging a “fairly significant reorganization” that will refocus her editorial staff on what she sees as the news outlet’s primary mission: holding “powers that be”—whether politicians or big corporations—accountable. As part of that, HuffPost, seen as a progressive voice in the media, will be looking to “bring a broader swath of America into the fold,” Poynter says, with plans to partner with more local news outlets, including Christian radio stations. It notes that at a recent talk at Harvard University, Polgreen offered some insight on the direction she wants to take the publication: “I think that journalism needs to rediscover its roots as a blue-collar profession, and find a way to get back in touch with empathic storytelling.”
- Finally, while many publishers have turned to content marketing and native advertising to make up for the loss of display advertising, it hasn’t been a walk in the park, as Digiday explains. Kayvan Salmanpour, who helped launch New Republic’s content studio two years ago, says in the article, “What I realized was that even though we had the editorial prestige, we didn’t have the scale, infrastructure, resources, technology to execute on that.” It’s the margin, not revenue, that’s the problem: The high cost of staff, overhead, and distribution, along with growing demand for premium (i.e., expensive) multimedia content, means margins are extremely tight—whereas the display ads that run on a publisher’s site are almost all profit.
On the Technology for Publishing Blog
- Work smarter! In our new InDesign CC 2017 Tip, Monica Murphy explains four easy ways you can access and search Adobe Stock in InDesign.
- Don’t miss TFP’s Media Metrics: Our most recent roundup of industry reports covers 2017 journalism trends, the potential of news alerts, desktop usage, iPad sales numbers, and more.
- Who knows how to market on LinkedIn better than LinkedIn itself? Check out our latest infographic to learn its recipe for success.
Image: Vanity Fair
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Posted by: Monica Sambataro
