Amazon’s Media Ambitions, Facebook’s Latest News Feed Change, Discovery-Scripps Deal, Time Inc.’s New Platform, InDesign Tip: Moves Pages to Fix Document Problems
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 the threat Amazon poses to media companies, a Facebook News Feed tweak that “punishes” slow-loading stories, the $11.9 billion Discovery-Scripps deal, a new platform to optimize Time Inc. sites, and more.
While some content companies are testing the waters with Amazon, others see the tech giant as an emerging threat as its media ambitions kick into gear. As a post on Axios points out, it’s now full-on competing with media orgs on a number of fronts: Its digital ad revenue is soaring, with 30% growth (to $1.8 billion) expected this year; it is launching social media and messaging apps to challenge the incumbents; it spent $4.5 billion on a variety of content in 2017; and it’s fast growing its video distribution and live-streaming partnerships, including a $50 million deal with the NFL. And, oh yeah, Amazon owns the digital voice assistant market with some 71% of consumers using Echo over other devices, the article says.- Meanwhile, Facebook’s latest News Feed tweak will “punish” stories with slow load times by decreasing their reach while bumping up articles that load quickly in its mobile app, Recode says. The social media company’s goal is twofold, it notes: to enhance the user experience, of course, but also entice more publishers to host their content on Instant Articles—”for fear that not doing so could hurt their distribution.” Other recent moves to draw in more publishers include more ad placements and a paywall to drive subscriptions.
- Media consolidation continued with Discovery Communications announcing it’s buying Scripps Networks Interactive for $11.9 billion in a deal that will “unite ownership” of cable channels including Animal Planet and HGTV. According to Bloomberg, the trend toward so-called skinny bundles—online TV services that offer fewer channels at lower prices, like Hulu and YouTube TV—was a key factor in the deal. Combined, the companies will be better able to leverage their programming “on new and emerging channels including short-form, direct-to-consumer, and streaming platforms,” Scripps’ CEO said in a statement.
- Elsewhere, Time Inc. is adopting a new platform, called Element, in an effort to centralize its technology and enhance the look of its websites. Integrating with its current publishing system, Element provides “basic templates for how articles, galleries, and recipes should look across all the different Time Inc. properties. The end result should be pages that load more quickly and are optimized for mobile,” TechCrunch reported. The goal, executive director Ben Ronne says, is to simplify and enable “enormous scale.” Over the past year, the publisher has gone from using 14 content management systems to just two, the article notes.
On the Technology for Publishing Blog
- InDesign Tip: If your InDesign document is behaving badly, use the Move Pages command to easily copy pages and their elements from a problematic document to a new one—a simple first step to troubleshooting that could help you avoid having to recreate the entire document!
- ICYMI: TFP’s Women in Media roundup features Journalist of the Year April Ryan, the 2017 Folio: Top Women in Media honorees, female leaders who are “disrupting the status quo,” Gwenyth Paltrow’s secret to success, and more. And see our latest infographic pick, highlighting the three major categories of visual content: static, interactive, and live motion.
- Now on Amazon! To create great apps, get your copy of our new e-Book Building Apps with Adobe Experience Manager Mobile.
Image: Axios
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Posted by: Monica Sambataro
