Rodale’s Road Map, The Atlantic’s Site Redesign, Google I/O Conference, ‘Confessions’ of a Social Media Editor, CreativePro Week, TFP’s Infographic Pick of the Week
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 an interview with Rodale’s COO, The Atlantic’s site redesign, announcements at Google’s I/O developer conference, insights from a social media editor, CreativePro Week, and more.
Rodale COO Beth Buehler spoke with Min about the publisher’s big-picture strategy as it absorbs some big shifts made over the past couple of years, including new leadership appointments, staff reductions, and brand changes. Key to that plan is revenue diversity—including e-commerce and affiliate commerce as well as direct and indirect sales—and lean operations. “One of the things in my role is lightening up our infrastructure, our processes and workflows, without sacrificing quality,” Buehler says. “It’s not super easy because we have tons of legacy processes and technologies. But we have spent a lot of time becoming lighter and more flexible.” In addition to detailing challenges Rodale faces as a publisher “in the middle” of the pack, Buehler also shared some of its recent wins: Sites are up 40% year over year, and on-platform video views are up 109% over the same period.- With today’s hyperfast pace of political coverage in mind, The Atlantic redesigned its website to accommodate twice as many stories above the fold, WWD reported, noting the site hit a record 3.3 million unique visitors for two consecutive days in Trump’s first weeks in office. “We felt that the design of the site was not reflecting the urgency or density of ideas and content that we’re creating,” The Atlantic’s Bob Cohn explained. According to Adweek, Trump coverage is driving record-breaking traffic at The New York Times and The Washington Post as well. At the Times, for example, one post got 4.5 million page views in under 24 hours and an additional 1.6 million views off-platform, the article said.
- Google made a bunch of announcements at its I/O developer conference, with CEO Sundar Pichai kicking things off with some eye-opening stats: 2 billion people now use Android; Google Drive has 800 million monthly active users; and 500 million people use Google Photos, uploading 1.2 billion photos every day. TechCrunch put together a quick slideshow of the announcements, many of which focused on Google’s push into artificial intelligence. For example, it debuted Google Lens, smartphone technology that lets users point their cameras at something and it identifies what the object is. The company also highlighted its Google.ai initiative to share AI research and tools, enhancements to Google Assistant and Google Home, the Android O beta, Android optimizations, and more.
- In Digiday’s latest anonymous “confessions” column, a social media editor for a popular fashion and beauty site shares her thoughts on everything from the stigma of her job (“there’s a general perception that we’re responsible for all the clickbait that everyone hates on social media”) to the secrets of brands and publishers (“the Illuminati isn’t putting all that content about the Kardashians in your feed—big data is”). What isn’t a secret is that social media is a moving target for publishers, many of which are finding themselves at the mercy of platforms. Says the social media editor, “…if they decide brands and publishers aren’t a part of the experience their users want, there isn’t really anything we can do about it.” In fact, she adds, “I’m not confident [my job] will be a real field five years from now.”
- Don’t forget to register for CreativePro Week (May 22-26 in Atlanta)—a must for every creative professional who designs, creates, or edits in Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, or Adobe Illustrator. To see the full conference agenda, list of speakers, and registration info, visit www.CreativeProWeek.com.
On the Technology for Publishing Blog
- Growing awareness about “fake” news and the like is affecting how consumers interact with digital content, according to this week’s infographic pick. Researchers say, however, that opens opportunities for brands to differentiate themselves.
- Don’t miss our roundup of recent Snapchat-related posts detailing how publishers are using the popular messaging app to drive engagement and traffic.
- Also check out Monica Murphy’s latest InDesign Tip on changes to InDesign CC’s user interface.
Visit 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
