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This week’s link herd October 20, 2014

October 20, 2014 by Andrew Leave a Comment

It’s a mega catch-up! This week’s Link Herd has discoveries dating back the past few weeks. Perhaps think of this post as a feeding frenzy of “we’re all publishers now” goodness as we examine trends in the marketing, media and publishing world.

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  • Disney’s Frozen Marketing And Online Singalongs
    Insight from UK’s Unruly Media on how Disney was able to generate interest and money by allowing Frozen and its iconic songs to flourish on YouTube.
  • Publishers keep tabs on Google’s latest skirmish
    Newspaper publishers in Germany have found Google News won’t be showing their snippets any more. This is Google defending themselves from legal claims of copyright infringement. Is it a case of be careful of what your wish for?
  • Love it? BuzzFeed Wants to Help You Buy It Too
    Buzzfeed adds a “click to buy” button. That would be standard for most sites but for Buzzfeed the implications are larger as retailers will find it much easier to determine whether the site’s readers are actually interested in buying items.
  • The New York Times needs to rethink its strategy — untargeted mini paywalls aren’t the answer
    The NYT is laying off staff, closing one app and taking a hard look at another under-performing mobile strategy. In this piece Mathew Ingram argues that unfocused paywalls aren’t the answer; readers won’t pay premium for content slices. They will, however, pay for relationships so turn the branded journalists into something worth paying for.
  • How to modernise a public relations agency or communication team
    How well is the PR industry adapting to a world in which we’re all publishers? Not well enough argues Stephen Waddington,President of the CIPR, argues that change has been talked about but not actually done. In this piece he walks the industry through some steps to achieve change.
  • Stop Making Misleading Studies on News and Social (by @baekdal) #opinion
    Baekdal tears into a Newspapers vs Facebook report and in doing so makes a host of well argued points. The piece covers everything from what ‘direct traffic’ in analytics actually means through to the definition of news.
  • Soledad O’Brien Brilliantly Explains How Brands Should Work With Elite Storytellers
    Modern media companies want brands to underwrite the stories they can’t necessarily afford to tell, and brands want to be a part of great stories. But very often, that partnership doesn’t work because brands are reluctant to do the things that go into truly great storytelling: namely, taking a leap of faith and relinquishing control.
  • Here’s What 2.7 Billion Social Shares Say About Online Publishing
    A in-depth study into what sort of content and which publisher is statistically significant in nearly 3 billion shares. The answer? Very few publishers and no trends. Old press tends to be more negative than new press. Facebook dominates shares. Surprised?
  • PewDiePie is sick of internet comments too, removes them from his YouTube videos
    King of YouTube the gamer PewDiePie is fed up of YouTube comments. It’s all spam or self promotion according to the vblogger. He’s going to turn them off from his channel and use Twitter or pehaps even Reddit instead. A challenge for Google?
  • YouTube introduces fan funding to allow users to donate to their favourite vloggers
    YouTube is introducing a “tip” system to let fans donate small dollar values to their favourite vloggers. Google takes a 5% cut. The result will likely be a boom in magic middle vloggers who will be able to step up their game, or be more willing to, with the additional revenue.
  • Who owns the rights to branded content: publishers or brands?
    An interesting question and one that’s taken a surprising time to surface – who owns branded content? Can brands pull content after they pay a platform to publish it? If they do then is the publisher due further compensation?
  • Will travel blogging as we know it fade into the sunset?
    Drew Meyers, co-founder of Horizon, argues that travel blogging as we know it today is likely to become a thing of the past as habits change.
  • 500 Publishers On Content Marketing Best Practices [Research]
    500 publishers, including some big names, contribute to a survey about being pitched too. Some of these publishers get dozens of pitches each and every day. Some of these publishers never respond to a pitch.
  • Google Launching Ad-Free YouTube Music Key Subscription Service
    The advertising community may well be up in arms over this rumour – imagine if YouTube users could opt-out of ads. Imagine if that also came with a music subscription! Where would video ads go? It is just a rumour. I think it’s a good move from YouTube too.
  • Brands should be collaborators, creators and curators – not just advertisers
    Very much in tone with ZEST’s “Creators, Curators and Community Moderators”, Georgia Arnold executive director of the MTV Staying Alive Foundation argues that brands should be more than just advertisers.
  • The LinkedIn challenge: acting like a publisher
    LinkedIn’s senior director of global marketing talking about the challenge the network faces – creating and growing a publishing arm within a platform company.
  • We Have a Rape Gif Problem and Gawker Media Won’t Do Anything About It
    A horrible story from Gawker staff about Gawker Media. The Jezebel team are at their wits end having to deal with horrible gifs that get posted as spam. The company won’t block them. As a result poor Jezebel staff have to delete each by hand.
  • Need more evidence that publishers and agencies are evolving on the same path? Mashable’s future is branded content and consultancy
    Mashable’s CRO describes the company as a “hybrid tech-media company” and wants the phrase native ads banned. Mashable is pushing further into branded content and consultancy.

This week’s link herd June 2, 2014

June 2, 2014 by Andrew Leave a Comment

This issue of the Link Herd contains plenty of pointers to the future.
What is the Zebra Eclipse future, you ask? I believe that marketing agencies and publishers share a common evolution. Both are now interested in engaging with audiences (not always with content) with the aim of turning that engagement into business value.

In the news below you’ll find publishers launching agencies (content marketing), publishers merging their marketing and content teams and marketing agencies discussing content and audience strategies. You’ve even got one switched on retailer who admit they’re essentially a publisher these days.

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  • WhatsApp emerges as big share driver for publishers
    WhatsApp can drive significant amounts on traffic – more than Twitter for those publishers able to track it. The lack of tracking is one problem and the other significant challenge is just how hard it is to integrate the share functionality in site and apps.
  • The HuffingtonPost moves all comments to Facebook
    In a move that shows the importance of community (return visitors and those who’ll persuade others to become return visitors) the US version of the HuffingtonPost is moving exclusively to Facebook comments. They say this is where readers want to discuss their articles but the team will have looked very closely at comment rates, engagement and traffic too.
  • Everything you need to know about the future of newspapers is in these two charts
    Two charts that paint a clear but bleak future for newspapers. The trend away from newspapers is likely to accelerate. At the same time the stats says the newspapers over index with advertisers with mobile ready to rise up and close the difference.
  • VICE to Gawker: Fuck You and Fuck Your Garbage Click-Bait ‘Journalism’
    Gawker and Vice continue their handbags at dawn battle. Interesting? Only in the sense that the two, page impression seeking, companies are doing this in public.
  • John Lewis marketing director and winner of The Drum’s Marketer of the Year Award Craig Inglis: ‘We regard ourselves as a publisher’
    John Lewis’ marketing director Craig Inglis is on hand to argue the Zebra Eclipse cause – in this article and video for The Drum (a publisher who recently launched a content agency) he says that the retailer considers itself to be a publisher.
  • Bloomberg gives its native ads a data spin
    A data-mining department within Bloomberg that is part of the editorial side of the company is being used to power and native ads in a program called Bloomberg Denizen. It’s the merger of publishing and marketing. Zurich Insurance Group is the first client and they’ve already signed on for a two-year campaign.
  • How Disney learned to stop worrying and love copyright infringement
    An insightful look into how Disney has done almost a 180 when it comes to policing their copyright and now seems very happy to let their fans create, curate and parody the property the company owns. Why? It’s good for business. These are the people who buy Disney. These are the people who turned Frozen into a phenomenon.
  • What Television Will Look Like in 2025, According to Netflix
    A great read on what Neil Hunt of Netflix predicted TV might look like in 10 years. Curation will be hugely important – albeit automated and provided by Netflix’s recommendation engine.
  • The Drum launches content marketing agency led by former NMA editor Justin Pearse
    Another clear signal that publishing and marketing are converging: The Drum have launched a Content Marketing Agency called The Drum Works. The Drum Works will be seperate from the editorial business but will create engaging content for The Drum’s online and print audiences.
  • The Future of eBooks? Streaming is Now 21% of Music Revenues in the US
    The growth of music streaming, completely legal, continues at a pace. In the States streaming now accounts for more than 20%. The Digital Reader asks what this means for the future of eBooks.
  • Publishing 2014: 3 brands tackling the digital challenge
    How are publishers adapting to the digital challenge? This article, a piece from Tara Honeywall at Mediator, looks at the FT, Conde Nast and the Times.

Recent ZEST posts

  • Using Kickstarter to battle tired tropes: An interview with Monica Valentinelli
  • The Guardian’s Key Publishing trends
  • This week’s link herd February 8, 2016
  • What could publishers offer? An interview with T Q Chant
  • Does The Society of Authors’ open letter to the Publishers Association miss a trick?

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