Lessons for newsmedia companies from around the mobile industry
19 February 2012 · by Mark Challinor
Readers on mobile devices are generally more time-poor, specific-reason focused, and armed with a different viewing method (a small screen) — and many are ready to go away if not instantly engaged or informed.
And therein lies the challenge for newsmedia companies: capturing and holding your readers’ attention and presenting only the right content in the context of who the reader is, what they’re interested in, and where they are. (As an industry, we are generally poor at this, offering basically the same content regardless of platform, age, time of day and who the viewer is.)
Below are some observations based on successful mobile industry monetization strategies, which should be a focus for us all.
- Know your readership and how they use mobile with you. The minute they engage, readers expect mobile content to be automatically tailored to who they are and where they are. To deliver this user experience and make it effective, we should take the time to learn what our readers’ mobile content habits are: how they access our content online, what our brand is known for, and what they expect from us.
For example, if your content is financial, readers are most likely to want the latest breaking news in the financial world. How can you make this a more compelling and convenient experience for them? Alternatively, with sports coverage, readers most likely check in to see their favourite football team’s latest statistics. How can you provide something unique to differentiate this?
A look ahead at what's in store for Mobile World Congress
13 February 2012 · by Otto Sjöberg
My mother died recently. She was close to 82 years old and not very tech savvy. During the final eight months of her lifetime, when she got ill and became weaker, the mobile phone was her most treasured belonging.
Her phone was an old Nokia from back in the days before the iPhone — when Nokia phones were the equivalent of a Kalashnikov among firearms — durable and always reliable in the line of fire, so the battery practically lasted forever if you were not talking. That was hard to believe for her. She was very stubborn, my mother, and it took me some time and effort to convince her not to turn the phone off when she wasn't using it. “How am I gonna be able to check how you are if it's always off?” was the argument that finally changed her mind.
During the last eight months of her life the mobile was always on. It was always next to her bed. And up until the very last few days she always answered.
Of course, this is on my mind — even as we're approaching the Mobile World Congress with all the important news and trends that will soon be all over media. But I still think it is relevant to share some soft thoughts, far from software, on why the mobile phone is such an important platform for media companies. It is about that one simple thing: bringing personalised news directly to me faster and whenever I want and wherever I am. Bringing it the way it's most convenient: text, photos, video. Or voice. “How are you today, Mom?”
...[more]Treating mobile like the fourth, unique media channel it is
06 February 2012 · by Dirk BarmscheidtIt seems so obvious to create a mobile product, whether for editorial content or e-commerce.
The rules are simple:
- The mobile handset screen is smaller, the bandwidth lower, and the user is on his way. Therefore, the mobile product has to be less than the fixed-line offer (less articles/ products, less features, less channels).
- Digital is digital, ergo the content and feature structures on mobile and fixed-line have to be the same.
- Mobile text typing is inconvenient, ergo no commentary or feedback features.
These three steps are definitely your first steps in the wrong direction. Mobile is not only the fourth screen, it is the fourth media channel which needs to be interpreted individually by every brand and offer.
In 2002, when E-Plus started i-mode in Germany, everyone thought mobile would be used as a sports encyclopedia. But the opposite was reality; near-live news and sports live tracker were the killer features on the first mobile multimedia platform. No one wanted to search for the winner of the 1960 football national championship in Finland.
Ten years later, the mobile world is the same; users are surfing differently to the fixed-line Internet. The visits are shorter, the frequency is higher, and daytime usage in particular is fundamentally different.
How mobile technology will shape media industry this year
30 January 2012 · by Mark Challinor
There are seven points I think I can offer my opinion on, (and collate the thoughts of the best minds in the industry on, based from what I have seen), in terms of how mobile will shape how we deal with our audiences and communicate with them in 2012. I offer the following:
- True and seamless media consumption experience across devices. Publishers will increasingly need to enable users to “start their reading” on one device and “continue their reading” on a second or even third device. Enabling this sort of “seamless” experience within a media brand, whether it is for the desktop, tablet, or smartphone, will drive engagement and repeat usage more and more.
- A more personalised media experience for our readers/consumers. Twitter, Facebook, Twitter, Google, et al, all are using data measurement and analytics to recommend media content for users, (all within their respective ecosystems). We can surely expect to see many more publishers enabling this feature to increase user engagement.
- Social channels for media consumption. Media brands today primarily leverage Facebook and Twitter for “discovery.” There is now the opportunity for media brands to distribute content to enable users to consume media within these social channels. (The Washington Post's social news-reader on Facebook is a good example).
- Apps and the desktop. Microsoft, Google, and Apple all are predicted to launch “experiences,” through new operating systems or the browser in 2012, which will enable an app-centric view of your desktop. This will present new distribution, engagement, and monetisation opportunities for media companies.
Mobile payments poised to take flight
06 January 2012 · by Mark Challinor
Mobile payments have finally started to take off in recent years, and are likely to grow from US$240 billion in 2011 to US$670 billion worldwide in 2015, according to Juniper Research. The overall mobile payments market is also expected to rise quickly, thanks to things such as mobile ticketing and coupons, money transfers, and the ability to purchase physical goods.
Even faster growth will occur with Near Field Communications (NFC), which can be used in retail locations to buy physical items. Juniper says 20 countries are expected to launch NFC services in the next 12 months, although how quickly the market will adopt it remains to be seen. NFC can be defined as a set of standards for smartphones and similar devices, such as readers in stores, to establish radio communication with each other, by touching them together or bringing them within a few centimeters of each other.
...[more]How mobile will affect the strategy of newspapers
20 December 2011 · by Otto Sjöberg
I like bold statements. Bold statements make things happen.
It was a bold statement when CEO Eric Schmidt last year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona announced Google's completely new strategy: mobile-first.
“It's not a phone anymore,” he explained. “It's your alter ego, an extension of everything we do.”
In the year following that statement a lot of important things happened in the mobile industry:
- Android grew to be the dominant operating system for mobile phones.
- Smartphones outsold PCs in the last quarter of 2010 (although Eric Schmidt eight months earlier predicted the shift would come in 2013).
- Apple became the fourth-largest producer of mobile phones.
- Nokia fired its Finnish CEO and appointed the first foreigner, a Canadian from Microsoft.
- Nokia and Microsoft joined hands to start fighting for a dominant position in the mobile ecosystem.
- Microsoft acquired Skype for US$8.5 billion.
- And Google acquired Motorola for US$12.5 billion.
A couple of weeks ago, I heard another bold statement, this time at the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco. On stage was John Donahoe, CEO of eBay: “I believe there will be more change in how consumers shop and pay in the next three years than there has been in the last 20. Think about that.”
...[more]The IKEA trail and what it means for your mobile products
13 December 2011 · by Dirk Barmscheidt
My wife asked me last week to look for a new sideboard for the living room. No problem. A standard piece of furniture which should be easily to be find. I thought.
A visit in a furniture store is a complex and often time intensive event especially for us men. Starting with a clear focus, in my case a simple sideboard, the desire wakes up. Inspired by the full range of furniture you are running from the living room section to the kitchen area, children’s section and bathroom area. And always right through the whole furniture store, always in fear that you missed something.
The IKEA experience next Saturday was completely different. What a blessing for me. You don’t need to think about the order of departments. Just follow the stream, it will bring you everywhere. And the range is clear and well structured. Wonderful!
And this is what I advise every Web site master: Build your mobile Web site or app based on the “IKEA trap” concept. The key figures are simple but not often executed:
...[more]How newsmedia companies can sell mobile to advertisers
08 December 2011 · by Mark Challinor
Many newsmedia companies now have their consumer revenue/subscription services set up or at least are in the process of doing it. So, what’s the next focus for the business?
Attention now shifts to the monetisation of our advertising assets.
We need to start ramping up our inventory sales process for selling mobile advertising, which can come in a number of forms, be it sponsorship, ad serving, or ad placement.
This firstly requires buy in. From the top down, we need acceptance and “gospel preaching” of such (internally and externally) that this is the route you are heading… and then resource the area accordingly.
So what is needed? I offer four areas for concentration:
1. Education (again, internally and externally)
- There is a general need for fuller education internally of industry sales staff on how to sell mobile. For example: What’s a good app/bad app? What mobile services are at our disposal? How do the various platforms/devices differ? What are the benefits/disadvantages of each? What measurement techniques will we use? How will we price it? And let’s not forget being immersed into examining what our competitors are doing, what they’re claiming regarding audiences et cetera.
The surprising truth about mobile Web sites
29 November 2011 · by Dirk Barmscheidt
Four weeks ago I had a meeting with an executive trainee at one of my clients. I had to introduce him to the mobile content product development started in 2006.
2006? More than a year before the first iPhone was launched? Yes, there was a mobile Internet time before the iPhone and before apps.
From a content provider or publisher perspective the mobile Internet in 2002-2006 was one of the best periods: unsophisticated xHTML sites and a paid content model. The reach was limited but the users chose the one-click-payment via the mobile network operator (MNO) to read the daily news or sports live tracker.
The first mobile marketplaces were established by KPN (i-mode) and Vodafone (Vizzavi/Vodafone live!). Just as Apple does now, back then these operators controlled who was joining the marketplace and what kind of content could be published. And last but not least, your revenue split — in the case of Vodafone — was only 60%.
The advantage? Economics of scale. One of the most important rules in digital media. Every mobile content product was developed in HTML with a minimum of individual features. Pure and clean. The focus was the editorial content.
...[more]Brands are increasingly becoming networks
25 November 2011 · by Paulo Mira
Brands will increasingly create their own content, and will create new opportunities for publishers to offer them their best customised content since they are going to produce their own content with or without publishers.
You may think this is far from happening…
Well, think again. Companies like Apple, Nokia and Google have their own networks. They access millions of people, at any moment. They have networks of users around the world, who are accessible via digital access, either through their own devices, via social networks, blogs et cetera.
Wow! And where will the media business be in this new game?
Some important players are redefining what they think the market will be. For instance, during the Festival of Media — Switzerland 2011, Carolyn Everson, vice president global marketing solutions, Facebook, said: “The departmentalised structure of big advertising agencies must die soon. The silos will crumble. There is no way to support a model that does not reflect the integrated and synergistic reality of the new consumers.” Carolyn worked for years in the traditional media business before joining Facebook in 2011.
Then you may think Facebook may have its own agenda in this game.
...[more]
