New York Times announces latest additions to growing digital family

Last Friday saw New York Times’ Executive Editor Jill Abramson reveal a series of new projects as part of a long-running initiative to improve and expand the title’s digital reach and offerings. In a missive addressed to the NYT’s staff, Abramson announced her plans for a new long-form digital-only magazine that will provide an “immersive” reading experience “that will include new, multimedia narratives.”

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.

French press to pay higher postal tariffs due to government funding cuts

The French government has announced that it will eliminate its 32.5 million euros of annual funding to the national postal services in response to increasing pressure to reduce public spending, hereby forcing the press industry to pay higher postal tariffs, reported Les Echos.

Japan’s biggest mafia group launches magazine for its members

If reports in several Japanese newspapers are correct, the printed press may have found an unlikely advocate in the form of one of Japan’s most notorious mafia organisations, the Yamaguchi-gumi. The criminal group is said to have created an 8-page magazine named Yamaguchi-gumi Shinpo (The Yamaguchi Clan Gazette) that is distributed exclusively amongst its approximately 28,000 members.

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.