#18 — Subscribers to digital media demand financial transparency
Hey there! It was an interesting news week in publishing - we hope you enjoy reading these highlights as much as we did!
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💯 Top picks
Members demanding financial transparency
Dutch subscription publisher De Correspondent has found that subscription revenue comes with certain obligations after members started requesting more transparency. Here’s an interesting view of the inner workings of a reader-funded publication.
💸 Business models
A unique take on memberships from Post Digital Network
The New York Post, Decider and Page Six collectively attracted over 53 million monthly uniques this summer, and the media group that owns all three plans to extend a membership model to it’s audience… offering extra services and experiences instead of content.
CollegeHumor makes a play for subscription revenue
CollegeHumor’s new subscription service, Dropout, offers mobile-friendly formats such as digital comics fictionalised chat conversations!
✍️ Modern journalism
Could The Washington Post's technology ambitions change the future of digital publishing?
When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post, he invested heavily in engineering and the in-house technology stack, Arc. Fast forward to now - Arc is being used by an increasing amount of large news organisations and making a profit. Spectators are wondering where Bezos will take it next.
Online-only media has to fight harder for attention
This study investigates how a shift to online-only in journalism doesn’t necessarily mean that the print readership will move over to the online version. It suggests that the average online reader spends far less time reading stories than print readers.
👩💻 Technology
A digital advertisement triopoly coming to an internet near you
Amazon is set to rank third position in digital ad sales in 2018, with $4.6 billion in ad revenue in the U.S, following the lead of Google and Facebook.
Introducing the biometric content factory
The Telegraph is using biometric testing such as facial coding and neuro testing(!) to improve the creative input behind their branded content business. They have already ran 8 campaigns using biometric tools…
Keep calm and embrace the S-curve
A rather sobering account of what non-linear growth feels like in the startup world!
🤷 WTF?
Google is going to create it's own Instagram stories
Did we hear this right? Google is going to start using AI to create its own Instagram-esque stories that will appear in search and image results.
