This week’s link herd represents a step away from a fully automated curation process to a semi-automated one. I use the Delicious bookmarklet to snap related stories and write a summary for each. That powers an RSS feed that the WordPress plugin RSS Digest then uses to create the blog post. However, RSS Digest isn’t perfect, hasn’t been updated in years and can’t cope with key elements like Featured Images. Rather than let RSS Digest post automatically it now posts to draft. This means I can pick better tags for the summary too.
It shows that some of us still use Delicious. The ability to write a lengthy note with a page capture is useful. The RSS feature is essential. I think they made a mistake with Delicious when they stepped back from promoting bundles to focus just on bookmarking. Why? Delicious lost its value to marketers and people with blogs they wanted to promote. It became just a utility. That said; it’s a utility that I’m now thankful for.
- Glam Media Plans To Expand Its Audience Beyond Women, So It’s Looking For A New Name
Glam Media has been very successful. Their new Foodie site alone saw 17.1 million visitors on December. Internally they’re now calling the group of sites “NewCo” because co-founder and CEO Samir Arora no longer feels Glam Media is appropriate. NewCo is on the lookout for a new name as they look to expand from being a series of female-centric sites to a wider audience.
- Snapchat and the decline of community management
Richard Jones, the CEO of Engage Sciences, argues that the 1-to-1 social media platforms like Snapchat are beginning to overtake the community based platforms like Twitter and Facebook. He suggests that brands are over invested in community management solutions and should look to equalise by spending more in a campaign based approach. The assumption here is that the Campaigns allow 1-to-1 engagement. What’s not addressed is how this can scale effectively for brands and how they’ll earn those 1-to-1 connections without the community in the first place.
- “It’s time to press the re-set button.” How Net-A-Porter is aiming to revolutionise the publishing world with shoppable magazine Porter
A telling development from Net-a-Porter as the retailer moves into print publishing and shoppable technology. Their new magazine, Porter, will let readers with image-recognition software on their smartphones to buy the luxury items featured. Net-a-Porter have an in-house team for digital marketing who work on the project and the brand’s eCommerce.
- Amazon Acquires Video Gaming Studio Double Helix Games
Amazon’s march into content production continues. TechCrunch was able to confirm that Amazon has bought Double Helix Games. This is the company that’s had great Kickstarter success and came about after The Collective and Shiny Entertainment merged. It certainly fuels rumours that Amazon is considering a games console of their own.
- Rubicon Project set for $100m IPO
Rubicon Project is a supply side platform that works with some 500 premium publishers to manage their display inventory. In other words they help digital publishers make money from ad revenue. They’re a powerhouse in the industry and are now on their way to a $100m IPO.
- Is this the age of the content strategist?
Econsultancy’s teaser post for their Digital Content Strategy reveals that less than 50% of agencies have plans to add a content strategist to their teams. This is the report that takes the snapshot on the merger of publishing and agency life; as both sets of companies use content and other techniques to engage with audiences.
