Steve Smith's Eye on Innovation: the Hidden Cost of Annoying Your Visitors
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April 27, 2015 Media Industry Newsletter Vol. 68 No. 17 New York, N.Y. www.minonline.com Steve Smith's Eye on Innovation: THE HIDDEN COST OF ANNOYING YOUR VISITORS. How many ways did digital technology disrupt and permanently break the traditional media business and editorial models? The list is as long as it is familiar by now. It lowered barriers to entry for countless competitors and introduced a hyperlink- ing navigation mode that forced publishers to refer visitors to those competitors. It transferred power from media brands to search engines and social platforms. Analyt- ics and interactivity fully inverted the top-down aspirational ethos of “aspirational media” (i.e. magazines) by replacing editorial authority with user voices and tastes. And, of course, networked advertising and eventually programmatic platforms simply decimated the traditional practice of selling media. Advertisers don’t buy you and your media now; they buy audiences. But, you all know this. Less discussed, however, is the way digital platforms undermined publisher control over the media experience itself. The Web browser may be the ugliest content delivery vehicle ever invented. (continued on page 6) DICK PORTER IS AMONG THE CASUALTIES IN MEREDITH RESTRUCTURING. min confirmed that Dick Porter, corporate EVP and head of media sales, was among the 100 let go last week by Meredith National Media Group "to redeploy our resources most effectively to move our business forward." Porter is the former president of Publishing Group of America and publisher of Reader's Digest and TV Guide. DR. MEHMET OZ AND "THE GOOD LIFE" WERE NOT IN THE MEDIA "ICU." His skills as a cardiothoracic surgeon at Columbia Presbyterian–one of the world's great teaching hospitals–are renowned. (continued on page 2) WIRED.COM IS OVER-"DRESSED," NOT OVERSEXED... The site set all-time records in February with Magazine Media 360º reporting 17.9 million mobile Web and 8.7 million desktop/laptop Web users producing eye-popping +659% and +109% differentials versus February 2014–and much bigger than March 2015's respective 7.2 million and 5.6 million (see charts on pages 8-11). The typical pre- sumption is Wired's March 2015 Sex in the Digital Age cover story that was posted in February, but no. The record-setting winner was Adam Rogers' The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of this Dress. (continued on page 5) ...AND PRINT MATTERS IN "WIRED'S" DIGITAL-DOMINANT BUSINESS. The May 2015 issue celebrates Wired's inaugural Next List, and the four-cover gatefold is a first. Qualcomm bought the space, and such advertisers as Air France, Cadillac, Cartier and Hilton give the issue an eclectic and upscale mix. (continued on page 5) • MONEY SHOT GIVES FACEBOOK A CAVEAT EMPTOR..................... Page 2 • T+L's "MORE MOBILE FRIENDLY THAN MOBILE READY" APP REVIEW..... Page 3 • MEDIARADAR COMPARES BUZZFEED'S AND MAGS' NATIVE AD ATTRACTION. Page 4 • MAGAZINE MEDIA 360o MARCH 2015 minfographic AND CHARTS.... Pages 7-11 • LUCKY SIGHTING; A G&G-RELATED PULITZER; "FAITHFUL" TVG..... ..Page 12 www.minonline.com © 2015 Access Intelligence, LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines of up to $100,000 for violations. PAGE 2 MIN 4/27/2015 DR. OZ, M.D. AND MEDIA STAR, FIGHTS BACK (continued from page 1) However, the controversy surrounding Oz using his The Dr. Oz Show and Dr. Oz The Good Life platforms to promote ho- meopathic and nontraditional remedies worried executives at Fox and Hearst Magazines when 10 physicians calling for Oz's dismissal from Columbia Presbyterian led to the New York Daily News' Sack This Quack! headline on April 17. On April 23, Oz gave a passionate defense on his TV show and in Time.com ("In some instances, I believe unconventional approaches ap- pear to work in some people's lives"). But the strongest backing came from American College of Lifestyle Medicine president Dr. David Katz, who wrote in The Huffington Post that five of the accusing physicians had ties to Mon- santo, which opposes legislation requiring the labeling of food with genetically modified or- ganisms that Oz supports. They got the other five, quipped Katz, "to make a [Jewish] minion." Count Monsanto out as an advertiser in Dr. Oz The Good Life, but otherwise it was busi- ness as usual last week. "Our momentum continues to grow, especially when you tell market- ers that you’re over-delivering on our 700,000 rate base by 20%," says publisher and chief revenue officer Kristine Welker. Whatever backlash happened appears to have been brief. MONEY SHOT: FACEBOOK GIVETH: FACEBOOK TAKETH AWAY. As the Magazine Media 360º Brand Audience Report has been showing all year, traffic growth at magazine media branded sites is far outpacing the overall growth of content on the In- ternet in general. Facebook gets more than a little credit for this largesse. In the past year it has shifted the algorithms that determine individual Newsfeeds in ways that (in- famously) depressed the organic social reach of most consumer brands and (famously) lifted the exposure of major media in the feeds. As a result, many magazines have reported enor- mous increases in their Facebook referrals YoY. Well, the other shoe may be about to drop. Last week, Facebook announced even more changes to the Newsfeed algorithms that introduce some uncertainty about how robust its pipeline to major media will remain. Three main changes will roll out in coming weeks. The first relaxes previous controls on whether multiple posts from the same source can be shown consecutively in a feed —all according to how many inputs a FB user has. This could be a net gain for media brands that are posting more new content than a user’s friends. The second change involves prioritizing new content from “friends you care about” in a feed so human connections aren’t crowded out by branded pages. For users with a lot of hu- man friends on FB, this could be a net negative for media brands. Perhaps even more impactful on publishers will be a new policy that depresses or pos- sibly eliminates the placement of posts that friends have liked or commented on. In other words, publishers cannot simply depend on gathering likes and comments on a news item for increasing reach. How and to what degree these changes will impact referral traffic to media is unclear, but the revisions appear more negative than positive. Facebook appears to know this al- ready. It posted the changes to its media blog, explaining that they are in response to user feedback about the previous revision. The company opened its post by reminding pub- lishers that in the last 18 months it’s doubled the amount of referral traffic to media sites. Why does that sound like a stockbroker trying to cushion news of an impending loss? Editor-in-Chief: Steven Cohn ([email protected]) 203/899-8437 Digital Media Editor: Steve Smith ([email protected]) 302/691-5331 Senior Editor: Caysey Welton ([email protected]) 203/899-8431 VP: Tony Silber ([email protected]); VP Publisher: Amy Jefferies ([email protected]); Director of Market Development: Laurie M. Hofmann ([email protected]); Analytics Coordinator: Stacy Hill ([email protected]); Marketing Associate: Allie DeNicuolo ([email protected]); Production Manager: Sophie Chan-Wood ([email protected]); Graphic Designer: Yelena Shamis ([email protected]); Event Content Manager: Kelsey Lundstrom ([email protected]); Senior Account Executive: Tania Babiuk ([email protected]); Boxscores ([email protected]) Access Intelligence, LLC President & Chief Executive Officer: Don Pazour; SVP, Media Group: Diane Schwartz; Chief Operating Officer: Heather Farley; Subscriptions/Client Services: 888-707-5814; List Sales: Statlistics, 203-778-8700; Advertising: 203-899-8498; Reprints: Wright’s Media, 877-652-5295 ([email protected]); Editorial Offices: 10 Norden Place, Norwalk, CT 06855; 40 Wall Street, 50th floor, New York, NY 10005; Faxes: 203-854-6735, 212-621-4879; www.minonline.com Access Intelligence LLC, 4 Choke Cherry Road, 2nd Floor, Rockville, MD 20850; Ph: 301-354-2000 Published 2015 © by Access Intelligence LLC. Distributed via email and online. For email and postal address changes, allow 2 weeks notice. Send to: Client Services or call 888-707-5814. For advertising info contact 301/ 354-1629. Contents may not be reproduced in any form without written permission. Subscription Rate: $1099 MIN 4/27/2015 PAGE 3 Steve Smith's App Review: "T+L": MORE MOBILE FRIENDLY THAN MOBILE READY. Time Inc.’s Travel + Leisure relaunched all of its properties this month under a new edi- torial mission it describes as “broadening coverage around the travel lifestyle through the prism of fashion, culture, food and more as well as a dramatically enhanced digital operation that will deliver exponentially more daily coverage with a new high volume pub- lishing approach and a global contributor network.” Okay. I, however, am focused on how the brand translates that strategy onto mobile devices. T+L most certainly suc- ceeds in porting its content elegantly to our smartphones. Translating? Well, that is another story. This is among the cleanest and simplest mobile designs I’ve seen among magazine brands. In its basic design, T+L has learned from others’ mobile mistakes…mostly. Rather than succumb to the screen-filling fat thumbnail approach, the site blends images and text in moderation in the feed. Thumb- nails are large but small enough to allow for white space and more than one story on a page. Some feature images even change tone as they scroll into view. The home page blend is nicely balanced and not too long— coursing through top stories, most popular and editor’s picks as well as notes from the “tipline” of helpful travel advice.