April 26, 2024
In five languages (English, Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian) and two U.S. printing, “Newsonomics: Twelve Trends That Will Shape the News You Get” is the first Ken Doctor book. Sign up here for notice of the new Newsonomics Readers.
Written for Traffic, the magazine of paywall provider Piano Media, here I explore in detail how and why less than 10 percent of readers really will make or break a digital news business. Good thinking, and analysis, via Mather Economics, New York Times, Washington Post, Tronc, Star Tribune, ...
Read MoreGoogle’s decade-plus First Click Free program sounded innocuous enough. In the Alphabet Inc. unit’s perpetual effort to keep the open web free, Google promised a search throughway to news pages. If publishers wanted to be easily found, they found little choice but to accept the ...
Read MoreWhat was Gawker? A trailblazing, piercer of pretense? A snarky, vestigial leftover of the early bloggy web? A company that early on understood the relationship between reader enthusiasm and selling stuff? Probably all three. It’s the last one though — Founder Nick Denton’s ...
Read MoreIt’s been a remarkable year for the nation, and its press. Transfixed by the Trump phenomenon, election anxiety has all but consumed us. But soon, what has felt like a national colonoscopy will soon be over, and the press will march (or at least step) forward. As we consider the most ...
Read MoreThere’s a nice scene in Hail, Caesar!, the Coen brothers’ latest movie, in which one Hollywood character astutely observes: “We’re not talking about money — we’re talking about economics.” Indeed. This year’s crazy-making U.S. presidential election further illuminates and blurs that divide. ...
Read MoreConsider them Ponce de Leon investments. Just as the Spanish explorer trawled Florida for the Fountain of Youth 500 years ago, NBC-Universal and its peers are now embarking on expensive voyages to seek a solution to aging and death, investing in and buying into the newest media. Their profound ...
Read MoreThe newest News Corp sets sail. Cast adrift — but with a handy $2.6 billion in cash and no debt, making its peers oh-so-envi0us — the world’s largest newspaper company is in the midst of furious change. At the flagship Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, it’s tough to find anyone in management ...
Read MoreWelcome to the emerging world of value exchange. It’s not a new idea; value exchange has been used in the gaming world for a long time. As the Zyngas have figured out, only a small percentage of people will pay to play games. So they’ve long used interactive ads, quizzes, surveys, and more as ...
Read MoreAmong these four newer products, we can see the emerging new rules of publishing creation. Among them: Critical mass enables growth. Niche product creation that builds on existing company infrastructure, knowledge and marketplace learnings is the cost-effective way to go. Each of these ...
Read MoreAt a time when so much of the news industry seems in flux, the FT has managed a steady-as-she-goes transition into the digital age arguably better than anyone else. While it occupies an enviable global business news niche, the ingredients of its relative success are ones that can be mixed and ...
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