Entries Tagged as News
Google News head Gingras urges rethinking “every facet”
07 May 2012
“I sometimes feel that people perceive we are going through a transformation from one steady state to another steady state,” Richard Gingras, Google’s head of news products, told the INMA 2012 World Congress on Monday morning.
“That is not the case.”
Instead, Gingras sees a future of ongoing and likely constant “disruption of media.” He provided the more than 300 media executives assembled in Los Angeles with areas to consider.
Unlike when television was introduced and caused the number of newspapers in some cities to drop from four to one, the Internet disruption has almost eradicated the need for print media, according to Gingras.
“More than ever we need to aggressively rethink every facet of the journalism model,” he said.
One major factor in the new dynamic is the connection between audience flow and site design. The number of people who get their news from social media is increasing.
Because of this, companies should be focused on getting more hits on content pages rather than just trying to drive traffic to their homepage. Social media leads users d
...[more]LA Times going digital-first to profit in new ways
07 May 2012
A search for “new oxygen, new growth” is the theme of the 82nd INMA World Congress. Growth will come with moving to digital, speakers said at Monday’s opening session.
“That’s where the industry is going, so that’s what we had to do,” said Kathy Thomson, president and CEO at the Los Angeles Times, said.
Thomson joined Ravi Dhariwal, INMA president and CEO for the The Times of India, and Yasmin Namini, INMA vice president and senior vice president for marketing and circulation for reader applications at The New York Times in opening day two of the conference.
All three spoke about a changing culture in newsrooms around the world and a growing need to create digital-first media to adapt to new consumer needs and grow revenue. The World Congress will present an opportunity for those in attendance to learn from each other and teach other how to do just that, Namini said.
“Today we are no longer just a newspaper business,” Namini said. “We are a multi-platform business. We are navigating the evolution of print, digital, and mobile.”
Thomson spoke specifically about some of the challenges the LA Times faces in trying to make that transition to digital.
“We are creating more engagement to not only change our culture, but transform our company,” she said. “The reality of what we live in today, very similar to many of you, is fragmentisation. Consumers have more choices than ever. We have to face those choice.”
Thomson explained that in her case, the LA Times has had to do that with limited resources, as the newsroom is not nearly as big as it once was.
That’s coupled with the Times’ parent company, Tribune, facing Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“We are attacking these challenges head on,” she said. “We are continuing to innovate. We’re diversifying our revenue. We are reaching audiences everywhere. We’re getting them to engage with our brand — more than just reading the traditional newspaper or the Web site.”
To get to the bottom of this culture change,the LA Times had to take a hard look inside its company and examine some of the trends that were going on, Thomson said.
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