News

Android dominates smartphone market, but publishers haven’t monetised it

Google’s Android is now the undisputed champion of the smartphone market, beating Apple’s iOS across the globe. Yet publishers consistently prioritise iPhone development over that of Android, often launching iOS apps before Android counterparts (a recent example: NPR). Apple’s purchasing ecosystem and wealthy clientele have proved more lucrative, but several developments, including the rumored launch of Google Play News, could shift this dynamic and help publishers monetise on the operating system.

New-look paywalls could charge less to earn more

If media executives had a £1/$1 (insert currency here) for every time they thought about how to monetise online content, they would never again need to worry about financing their publications. Unfortunately this isn’t the case, and for the past 10 years many media organisations have not stopped in their search to develop new payment models to replace falling print revenue. Just this week two innovative models in the paid-content field have come to the fore, and both seek to increase revenue at the same time as charging readers less.

Newspaper websites overwhelm readers, should declutter

Picking up a newspaper, a reader expects to see an editor’s judgement of the most important stories that day. But this hope is false-placed on the web, with many newspapers so overindulging in cheap online space that homepages become cluttered to the point of ruining the user experience.

Press+ takes its meter subscription model global

RR Donnelley’s Press+, which provides a digital subscription metering solution for publishers, recently announced it is expanding globally and has added London-based John Michael Hull as business development director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Hull was previously the business development manager for Piano Media.

New York Times, Telegraph colonise Kindle Fire market

The New York Times and The Telegraph recently launched Kindle Fire apps, looking to further tap into the Android market. Other publishers may consider following suit: Though the device represents a limited share of the tablet market, Kindle Fire owners are among the most voracious news consumers.

Corriere della Sera launches social news site Passaparola

Launched in beta on Tuesday morning, Passaparola is Corriere della Sera’s new social news platform. Italy’s biggest-selling national newspaper introduced its latest project as “a new way to read the news and interact with readers” that aims to “promote the flow of content, debate, a connection between readers with similar interests and the generation of vertical communities around [news] content.”

Twitter won’t replace newswires, study suggests

Despite perceptions that “Twitter is the newswire now,” as Mathew Ingram declared in 2011, a new study showed that newswires tend to break stories before Twitter, though the micro-blogging site covers events news outlets neglect.

Gallup poll: Only 21 percent list Internet as main news source — can this be right?

A recent Gallup poll found that 55 percent of Americans list TV as their primary source of news, and only 21 percent give Internet media this distinction. But this research may not be reason for broadcast companies to celebrate nor for digital media to despair: Other studies contradict Gallup’s findings by suggesting the new generation of news consumers are abandoning TV for information online.

Snowden scoop sees Guardian online challenge New York Times

Internal figures given exclusively to The Atlantic by the Guardian confirm that on 10 June 2013, the day after the British title revealed the identity of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Guardian’s websites attracted 6.97 million unique browsers. It was the highest level of traffic the sites had ever recorded for a single day, and also the first time that the news title’s US site had ever attracted more readers than guardian.co.uk.

Best practices for verifying UGC photos

The process of verifying user-generated content (UGC), particularly photos, has long been “more art than science,” as NPR’s Andy Carvin, who curates UGC from the Middle East on his 96,000-follower Twitter feed, said in 2011. But a recent study was able to identify fake photos with 97 percent accuracy, suggesting that technology will soon allow journalists to streamline the UGC verification process to the click of a button.