Anastasiia Balyk

Business of Media Spring 2022: Digital Media Publishing

[anastasiiabalyk]

BuzzFeed Inc. Unveils Lighthouse 2.0, Its Updated Suite of First-Party Data Tools

On April 19th, 2022, BuzzFeed announced that it is going to market with a newly enhanced version of its first-party data solution, called Lighthouse, that now incorporates the scale and data of Complex Media, which it officially acquired in January. With the acquisition of Complex Media, BuzzFeed now reaches 119 million monthly users.

The combined size and audience overlap of the portfolio allows BuzzFeed Inc. to offer more than 1,000 unique audience segmentations, and a meta analysis of 50 campaigns that used Lighthouse in 2021 found that the product suite led to a two times increase in brand awareness and purchase intent. BuzzFeed Inc. is officially introducing the newly expanded Lighthouse right now, at its Upfronts presentation on April 27, which marks the first time the publisher has participated in the event in five years, as Adweek exclusively reported.

According to Ken Blom, BuzzFeed’s Executive Vice President of Business Strategy and Operations, this is all about connecting the brands together and expanding its reach and appeal to marketers. “What we’ve built is an extension of what we’ve done with Lighthouse, which are the foundational pipes connecting brands’ audiences,” Blom said. “But one big distinction is that these are data solutions for every part of the marketing funnel, not just display.” 

This is an essential step for BuzzFeed, who has been trying to recover from the fiasco of its money-losing BuzzFeed News.  This new step forward for BuzzFeed has the potential of transforming how digital display advertising works and possibly have long-term implications on the business model of the digital publishing sector. Advertising has been one of the most profitable streams of revenue across many different industries, so seeing publishers like BuzzFeed step up and provide more accurate  audience insights by enhancing its own first-party data tools shows that more and more publishers are taking the initiative to develop its offerings and services to outside advertisers. 

[anastasiiabalyk]

How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Digital Publishing

Over the past couple of years, the digital publishing sector has seen tremendous growth in its popularity. Now that more countries have easy access to the news all around the world, the next challenge is producing high-quality content consistently in large volumes, according to Forbes. 

Forbes points out that with the rise in voice-based and image searches, content discoverability is what is needed the most, and Artificial intelligence (AI) can help in this endeavor. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are already helping to transform the industry, and here are some of the primary ways in which this is happening:

Publishers can automate complementing processes and speed up their publishing schedules. This ensures better accuracy and performance.

Processes such as formatting, structuring and grammar checks are unavoidable and cumbersome at the same time, and AI-based grammar checkers can ensure the content’s quality is top-notch.

One of the most crucial applications of artificial intelligence in digital publishing lies in the process of auto-tagging. Tagging refers to the classifying of your content within categories to improve its discoverability. If done manually, digital editors may end up spending hours adding the right metadata for the content that they are publishing.

As companies continue to target customers across the globe, having multilingual content is no longer just an option. Tools empowered with AI and ML ensure that readers have access to highly professional and sophisticated translations at their disposal.

Machine learning algorithms are equipped to understand the behavioral patterns of users, which can then enable them to tailor the right message and deliver it to the target audience.

This shows that the digital publishing sector is taking a step forward in integrating technology and Artificial Intelligence as part of their strategy. This will help them to retain their readers, and for the subscription-based models, ensure that the customers get the most value out of the subscription.

[anastasiiabalyk]

Forbes Expands Into Metaverse With Launch Of “Virtual Billionaires” NFT Collection

Forbes, a world-known American business magazine, has recently delved into the world of NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Yesterday, Forbes launched a preview of its virtual Billionaires NFT collection, a first of its kind NFT project for any media/publisher outlet.

The 100 fictional billionaire investors featured as NFTs include theoretical portfolios and virtual net worths based on real-time New York Stock Exchange pricing. Along with their “financial assets”, Forbes Virtual NFT Billionaires come with distinct hobbies and accessories featured on their own personal Forbes.com profile page. The NFT collection and Ethereum-based token, which was developed in partnership with cryptocurrency exchange FTX, will officially launch on April 13, but early access is already available to Forbes subscribers now.

Vadim Supitskiy, Chief Technology Officer at Forbes has said, “the launch of this collection is an important step as Forbes embraces Web3 and digital assets, and it provides an opportunity for our audience to better engage in this space too.” He also added that it is not the first time for the media outlet to experiment with NFTs and Web3 as last year Forbes turned its magazine cover into an NFT, and it has previously lead the conversation around digital assets and Web3 at its Inaugural Summit. Now, Forbes is also paving its way into Metaverse by launching these interactive collectibles that can be authenticated and traded on the blockchain. This demonstrates that even media outlets and news publishers start to delve more deeply into the Metaverse and try to establish their place in the possibly future virtual reality.

[anastasiiabalyk]

Guardian to test paywall on news app in reader payments push

The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, has been recently testing paywalls on its news app. The Guardian is known to be open access and “free of cost” online news publisher, but recently there have been attempts to monetize on the digital content. Some of the ways the Guardian has been making profit previously was through online advertisements, subscriptions, and “contributions” (donations from the readers). Interestingly enough, the Guardian last year was one of the news publishers with more than 1 million digital subscriptions, but on a unique model where most of its “supporters” voluntarily contribute at least £5 (pounds) a month for free-to-read news.

While the Guardian is planning to keep its website open access just as it has done it before,  the news publisher will soon start to require a fee from a sample of regular news app users as it explores the best pricing model to put the entire app product behind a paywall. In the past, the publisher was known for having hostility towards paywalls under former management, but recently there has been a shift to monetize more content. It is interesting to see that more and more news outlet start to incorporate paywalls into their business model. 

[anastasiiabalyk]

Australian Publishers Went Dark In Protest for More Payments From Platforms

Earlier this semester, we have discussed how Australia have taken a step forward in protecting its local news publishers. As we can recall from Yanna’s blog, Australia has passed a law that called for digital giants like Google and Facebook to compensate traditional media outlets when the companies use their content and display it on their sites. 

That story has developed even further on March 23rd, as over 30 independent media outlets stalled from publishing news for 24 hours. According to Adweek, protesting against Meta’s failure to pay publishers for the journalism that appears on Facebook is a part of #WaitingOnZuck campaign, led by social cause consultancy Decade of Action, that serves as a response to the 12-month review of the News Media Bargaining Code that was signed into law last February. Even though, ​​The freeze cost publishers nearly millions of dollars in lost ad revenue, this step is considered to be essential for ensuring that local publishers receive equal representation and opportunities as big news publishers who mainly benefit from the deals with big tech companies. Australia serves as an example of how countries are able to make sure that small and independent publishers are not left behind. 

Some countries also started to follow in Australia’s footsteps. For example, countries like Canada and the United States are also trying to enforce similar laws. In the U.S, the proposed Journalism Competition and Preservation Act has already been introduced in the Senate and if passed will suspend antitrust rules that allow the media to collectively negotiate with big tech companies, which will be a big step forward for many digital publishers. 

[anastasiiabalyk]

The Financial Times Rolls Out News App to Drive Subscribers

The Financial Times is one of the world’s largest global business publications. The U.K-based business publisher has recently announced a launch of their brand new news-app, the “FT Edit”. According to Adweek, this is the FT’s attempt to make journalism more accessible to various audiences and drive more subscriptions to their digital newspaper. 

For the starter, the app will be offered for free to the users for the first month, and after that, the subscription will be 99 cents for the following six months. After that, the price increase will be 4.99 in all currencies a month. The FT Editors believe that the app will offer news in a very easy and digestible way, and the stories provided are in-depth reads covering areas in world news, science, business and culture. “FT Edit” will offer readers eight stories every weekday for 99 cents, in every currency, and is now available in the iOS App Store. 

Since Financial Times offers print only for select zip codes in the U.K, it is important for the publisher to further develop its digital publishing and gain more subscribers that interact with its content. According to Axios, the FT has reached 1 million paid readers in 2019, but that also includes print subscribers, and Digital journalism made up 46% of FT’s total revenues. Introducing the app with the current surge in digital subscriptions can possibly help the Financial Times to direct more readers to utilizing the digital subscriptions and hopefully drive its revenue up even further. 

[anastasiiabalyk]

The New York Times launches a Telegram channel

On Monday, March 14th, the New York Times has announced that they have launched a new, dedicated channel on Telegram. Telegram, an extremely popular app in both Russia and Ukraine, has been a primary social media for communicating information about the war between the two countries. 

According to Insider, Ukrainian officials have used the app extensively to both issue government statements and attempt to combat Russia's disinformation campaign, which is often spread through pro-Kremlin channels on the platform. The Times believes that utilizing this social media platform will make its journalism more accessible to readers around the world. Such a decision came after the New York Times went under fire on social media for not removing the subscription/pay block on the news related to Ukraine, while taking pride in spreading awareness regarding the conflict. Making a dedicated Telegram channel (which is free for any Telegram user) ensured that more readers had free access to all of the new coverage. Amid the digital isolation in Russia, this is also one of the few ways Russian citizens have access to non-government controlled media sources. 

Telegram, a messaging platform of more than half a billion active users, offers encrypted messaging options. It has specifically become the center stage during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia as it is one of the few platforms that cannot be regulated by the governments’ and reduces risk of information leakage. This platform is specifically popular amongst users who put great emphasis on data protection. Telegram is also largely popular for its group-based chat rooms where people can discuss a variety of subjects. WhatsApp, which is part of Meta’s parent organization, has also attempted to introduce group-based chat rooms last week, hoping to also regain its previous popularity in the Eastern European countries. However, since the company does share some of their data with its parent company, WhatsApp’s attempt to replicate Telegram’s was a major flop. 

[anastasiiabalyk]

Russia Plunges Into Digital Isolation

With the current conflict going on between Ukraine and Russia, with so much news being circulated online, Russian authorities are struggling to monitor the flow of independent information. This comes with the fact that the Russian authorities and multinational companies have already erected a digital barricade between the country and the West and with that the last bits of independent news were also blocked off.

TV Rain on Thursday after the independent television channel said it would suspend operations indefinitely.  Credit: The New York Times

According to the New York Times, even as President Vladimir V. Putin tightened his grip on Russian society over the past 22 years, some independent information and political expression was still available to the general public. But with the current conflict, those bits of information were a threat to Putin's influence over the public opinion regarding the war in Ukraine (which he obviously wanted to present as necessary intervention rather than what was portrayed online). 

Up until now, the Russian public had some sort of political expression - the general public could openly criticize the authorities and the government. However, as the NYT has reported, this has completely changed.  Russian just recently have shut down the only two independent media outlets - Ekho Moskvy, the liberal radio station, and TV Dozhd, or Rain, a digital upstart. Many people started to refer to this as the digital Iron Curtain, showing that there is a growing wedge between East and West. 

This current situation poses a big risk to the digital publishing industry, in general. The current situation has demonstrated that with a snap of the fingers, it is extremely easy for the governments to take full control over the free flow of information. While this is hopefully not happening to any other country soon, this brings up the question of how the industry can be affected when governments still have the power to decide whether or not the public has access to different sources of information. While the digital publishing sector does not really depend on whether or not Russia is participating in the global market of this sector, it still brings up the questions of what kind of precautions should be implemented in order to ensure the industry’s success.

[anastasiiabalyk]

CNN to Introduce Its Full Programming Slate - The CNN+ streaming service

On Wednesday, February 23rd, CNN revealed more details about its new CNN+ streaming service that will offer 8-12 live daily and weekly programs as well as 1000+ hours of on demand content and interactive experiences at launch this spring. 

CNN+ is planned to offer the live daily and weekly programming, as well as exclusive interviews, which the CNN executive vice president and chief digital officer and head of CNN+, Andrew Morse, believes will completely differentiate CNN+ from any other streaming platform. Morse believes that no platform can provide such content - “CNN+ will offer world class journalism, premium storytelling, smart perspectives on the news and an interactive community for passionate news junkies.” It is also believed that CNN will offer its own original series and films. 

However, what does this mean for the world of digital publishing? While CNN is primarily known for its cable network, it is also one of the largest news organizations online. It is rumored that with the CNN+ subscription, hours of news reports will also be available as a part of incentive to join the platform. However, how will this affect their digital publishing sector? Will the same news reports and content be offered on both the online publishing and the new streaming services? 

This also shows that many news organizations are seeking ways to diversify its offerings and content and join the competing world of subscriptions and streaming services. This is the start of the defining moment for many news organizations, and only time can tell how these platforms will choose to differentiate themselves from their competitors.  

[anastasiiabalyk]

The New York Times’ Wordle Acquisition and the Public Reaction

Wordle, the daily word game hit of 2021, has been recently acquired by the New York Times, and has joined The New York Times’s portfolio of original and engaging puzzle games. Acquiring Wordle is part of the New York Times strategy to increase subscriptions count to the digital publisher. It is believed that the daily fun games and puzzles are one of the driving subscription factors for the New York Times. 

While Wordle is still hosted on its own separate website host, it will be soon moved over to the New York Times platform. The original creator of Wordle, Josh Wardle, has said that despite the acquisition by the NYT, the goal is always going to be to keep Wordle free and easily accessible for the general public. Despite those promises, the public is still hesitant to believe that this will be the case. According to Vice, after the move to New York Times, it is most likely that the code will be more difficult to reverse-engineer, the features/content of the game might change, and some sort of monetization will be included in the game, which is what generally puts off the public. 

In order to avoid such possible outcomes, many users decided to download the Wordle offline by utilizing the available reverse-engineered codes and by downloading the original HTML files. The Vice article even provides instructions on how to possible download Wordle for the next 7 years.

[anastasiiabalyk]

The New York Times Wins 2 Polk Awards for Investigative Reporting

Long Island University has recently announced the winners of the George Polk Awards in Journalism, honoring journalists in 15 categories for their reporting in 2021. New York Times have won 2 Polk Awards and was honored for coverage that revealed a plot behind the murder of the Haitian president and for investigations on the toll of America’s air war in the Middle East. The curator of the awards, John Darton, has shared that there were over 600 submissions received, and most of them came from more sources of investigative reporting than ever before, which speaks to the changing landscape of journalism.

The New York Times was honored with two awards in the following categories: foreign reporting and military reporting. 

Maria Abi-Habib, Frances Robles and the staff of The New York Times, winning the foreign reporting award, were honored for their reports that revealed a plot behind the murder of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, linked to drug traffickers he was trying to expose. After the investigation being stalled by the officials and investigators, Ms. Abi-Habib conducted more than 70 interviews with different key figures to report on the president’s life in the months leading up to his assassination and uncovered corruption and self-dealing in the government.

A contributing writer, Azmat Khan, in collaboration with The Times reporters Dave Philipps and Eric Schmitt were awarded the military reporting award for investigations that uncovered the true toll of America’s air war in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Documents discovered by Ms. Khan showed a pattern of errors and civilian deaths connected to The Pentagon’s activity during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was reported that a drone strike mistakenly killed 10 civilians, including seven children. 

[anastasiiabalyk]

Virgin Galactic opens ticket sales for flights to edge of space

Virgin Galactic, a space tourism company, has announced that they are planning to open up ticket sales for flights to space. The Verge has reported that on Wednesday, February 16th, the general public will have an opportunity to buy a ride on the venture’s space plane that takes customers to the edge of space (and back to Earth, of course!). 

While it is unknown when the flights would take place, it is predicted that by the start of 2023, space travel might be possible. In July of last year, Virgin Galactic was able to successfully fly its founder, Richard Branson, to space, but unfortunately, the flights were put on pause due to an existing manufacturing defect. 

The tickets run for whooping $450,000, with initial $150,000 deposit and later the remaining $300,000 payment before the flight. This purchase also requires a filled application that can be found on Virgin Galactic’s website. 

Virgin Galactic is planning to sell around 1000 tickets, and that is not including the already existing 600 reservations that were made during the initial ticketing round that took place around 2013.

With the purchase of the tickets, Virgin Galactic also promotes the idea of member access to the Future Astronaut community that is designed to bring inspiration and deliver out of space (pun intended) experiences and memories for the customers. (Business Wire)

The Wall Street Journal reported that the 90-minute flight will depart from New Mexico’s Spaceport America, and the travelers will undergo several days of preparations before the spaceflight takeoff. 

[anastasiiabalyk]

Choosing the Sector

My sector is Digital Media Publishing and I will be following the Vice, New York Times, and Vox.