#news-publishers

#news-publishers

"Google" has become a verb that's synonymous with "search."But Google isn't the only place to go to find content and products.Google's own internal research shows that 40% of young people use platforms like Instagram and TikTok as a de facto search engine.And both are responding to this trend in the only way ad-supported platforms know how: by introducing search ad formats.

After luring influencers with massive creator funds, social media companies are reverting back to an advertising revenue-share model to compensate creators.While the Reels backtrack seems like a bait-and-switch, influencers have long complained about inconsistent and unsatisfactory payments from creator funds.

Newsrooms across the country have withered while the stories they produce at great cost enrich big technology companies that pay nothing for sharing them on their platforms.Despite bipartisan support, attempts to make those companies share ad dollars with news publishers have sputtered in Congress.Now, a California lawmaker from the East Bay is pushing a bill - limited to this state - that would accomplish the same goal using a different approach.

Newsrooms across the country have withered while the stories they produce at great cost enrich big technology companies that pay nothing for sharing them on their platforms.Despite bipartisan support, attempts to make those companies share ad dollars with news publishers have sputtered in Congress.Now, a California lawmaker from the East Bay is pushing a bill limited to this state that would accomplish the same goal using a different approach.

Google is running tests that block access to news for some Canadian users in response to a new bill that could force it and other large platforms like Meta's Facebook to negotiate deals with news publishers to pay them for content, Reuters reports.The tests will reportedly impact less than four percent of Canadian users, run for around five weeks, and will "limit the visibility of Canadian and international news to varying degrees."

Ministers have been warned that local journalism will struggle to survive without new support and fresh thinking from the Government.
he Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee found that, while some small publishers have adapted to the challenges of declining advertising revenue and the shift to a largely online readership over the last two decades, the position of many papers remains precarious.

Meta has begun to block some Canadian users of Facebook and Instagram from accessing or posting news content until the end of the month.The move, which the social media giant announced in a blog post on Thursday, comes in reaction to the looming passage into law of Bill C-18, the Online News Act.Facebook has said it will be forced to block news content from its platforms in Canada if the bill becomes law, something that could happen as soon as this month as the bill is currently being considered in the Senate.

Why is there so much misinformation circulating online?Because, unfortunately, "it's a great business," says L. Gordon Crovitz, a longtime journalist, former publisher of The Wall Street Journal and co-founder of NewsGuard, speaking on this week's episode of AdExchanger Talks.NewsGuard estimates that large, well-known advertisers - the sort of advertisers that get very uptight about brand safety - are unintentionally funneling as much as $2.6 billion through programmatic pipes directly to misinformation websites every year.

"The big, scary, existential question is, will social media continue to be a traffic source for a news organization?Or will it become just a storytelling platform or just a marketing platform?"That's the question that one publisher asked in a Digiday piece today about how Twitter is declining as a traffic source for publishers.

New Zealand plans to start mandating that Google and Meta pay local media companies for reposting news content on their platforms.The country's Broadcasting and Media Minister, Hon Willie Jackson, announced the planned legislation in a Sunday press release.It's not fair that the big digital platforms like Google and Meta get to host and share local news for free.

Facebook might ban news sharing in Canada if the country passes legislation forcing the company to pay news outlets for their content ( via The Wall Street Journal).Facebook switched off news sharing in the country in response, and Google threatened to pull its search engine from the country."If this draft legislation becomes law, creating globally unprecedented forms of financial liability for news links or content, we may be forced to consider whether we continue to allow the sharing of news content on Facebook in Canada as defined under the Online News Act," Meta states.

Almost 60% of LinkedIn's users are between the ages of 25 and 34, making it the single largest demographic to use the platform.And this is a demographic with a willingness to pay for news.At a time when publishers are moving past seeing social media platforms as traffic drivers, and even a major publication like BuzzFeed News shut down because of a sharp decrease in Facebook referral traffic, LinkedIn is giving publishers a reason to smile.

Fans of Frank Ocean lost thousands of dollars after a scammer sold them fake AI-generated songs, according to a report from Motherboard.It was only a matter of time.The scammer made off with around $13,000 CAD by selling a collection of bogus "leaked" tracks by the artist to a Discord server of his fans.

Meta reel-y wants to monetize Reels.(Sorry, had to.)Now that the company has abandoned its metaverse plans, it's getting back to its bread and butter: advertising.A performance-based model is meant to be fairer since creators' ad revenue often suffers due to factors outside their control, such as the need to cap the number of ads shown to individual users.

If you've got the attention span for 6,340 words about an outré web component framework - and don't lie, you do - I suggest you check out this piece by David Pierce just out at The Verge.Okay, let me sell that a little better: If you want to understand the relationships between tech companies and news publishers over the past decade - how they have sprouted and shrunk, been tainted and curdled - read this piece on the birth, life, and death of Google AMP.

The California State Assembly will consider a bill this session that requires digital advertising monopolies like Google and Facebook to pay for content they siphon from local news outlets.The California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), AB 886, directs big tech companies to pay publishers a "journalism usage fee" each time they use local news content and sell advertising alongside it.

Publishers' high hopes for 2022 were brought down to earth about halfway through the year.The first revenue stream that felt the impact of the economic downturn was advertising, but by the end of the year, subscriptions began to slow and some publishers reported dips in consumer revenue streams, like affiliate commerce.

The recently released World Press Trends Outlook released by WAN-IFRA (World Association of Newspapers), shows that print still remains a key element of news publishers operations.Moreover, print advertising remains the most important income source.Significantly, the transition to digital has stalled.

This week once again saw social timelines taken over by Spotify Wrapped, the audio service's year-end user roundup of the most-played music and podcasts.The organic marketing play is obvious - people widely share their Wrapped updates - but Spotify also spends on out-of-home activations, live events and digital media to amplify its organic edge.

Sign up for insightful business news.If Facebook stopped your uncle with a weakness for conspiracy theories from incessantly posting news stories, would that be so bad?On Monday, Meta's Head of Global Affairs Nick Clegg doubled down on Meta's threat to block news on its platforms in Canada if the government goes ahead with proposed legislation to make Big Tech companies hammer out licensing deals with news publishers for their content.

An industry body representing news publishers has said an eleventh-hour agreement was reached with major broadcasters meaning video footage of the coronation can be shared with their online audiences following what they described as a BBC blackout.On Friday, British publishers and broadcasters including GB News and TalkTV said they were deeply concerned by the corporation allegedly restricting access to the pool footage for the historic event on Saturday.

Ministers have been warned that local journalism will struggle to survive without new support and fresh thinking from the Government.The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee found that, while some small publishers have adapted to the challenges of declining advertising revenue and the shift to a largely online readership over the last two decades, the position of many papers remains precarious.

This is a series of articles that explores where creators and publishers are today - and where the media as we know it needs to go in the short term.The author will provide solutions and concepts for how to change the status quo at the end of the series.Part 1: Beyond the paywall: Why now is the time to reimagine earning from digital content
Part 2: The attention economy: Why news publishers are losing
Part 3: Subscription fatigue: Why everybody loses (I)
Part 4: Subscription fatigue: Why everybody loses (II)
Part 5: Subscription Nomads: A warning
Part 6: Subscription Cannibalization is here.

It doesn't matter whether they're for your Kindle or in print - starting this week, Amazon will no longer sell print or digital newspaper and magazine subscriptions.Publishers were alerted to the coming change in December, and subscribers were notified last week.(If you have any of these subscriptions, you can see the timing for how they'll be phased out; you won't lose money.)

TV broadcasters still dispute the basics of how to count an ad impression.This week, a broadcaster-backed joint industry committee published a first pass at standards for video currency providers.Paramount, which is part of the JIC, released a of its own to help buyers and sellers use alt currencies.

Last week's edition of Hot Pod contained a statistic so stunning I had to read it twice:

One thing I keep hearing over and over is that it is so much harder to launch a podcast now than it was, say, three or four years ago.And that is usually coming from people at established studios with at least some marketing might.

New Zealand takes notes from Canada's Bill C-18 which aims to force the two companies to negotiate commercial deals for news revenue-sharing with publishers

   
WELLINGTON - The New Zealand government said it will introduce a law that will require big online digital companies such as Alphabet Inc's Google and Meta Platforms Inc to pay New Zealand media companies for the local news content that appears on their feeds.