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The end of the year is so close you can just about taste it. Although there is no shortage of real (horrifyingly real) news out there, already publishers are running their year-end lists. Digiday is not exempt. But if you want a more recent retrospective, here are the best stories of the week just ending.
Elite Daily gets dinged
The Daily Mail bought Elite Daily as a millennial play, but the acquisition has turned into a disaster. Two weeks ago, the Daily Mail General Trust wrote down the entirety of its investment in the millennial-focused publisher, a tacit admission that the site was worthless to the company and its investors. Elite Daily’s potential reach was tremendous, but advertisers saw two audiences that looked, and acted, very differently.
The Huffington Post wants more people working for less
The Huffington Post has been talking about growing its contributor network to 1 million, from 100,000. To do that, it’s put in place a new system that’s causing a backlash among some bloggers. They say that in addition to blogging for free, to get exposure for their posts, they have to do all the promotional work themselves. “Ultimately, the new Huffington Post platform is making bloggers work harder – for free,” griped one blogger, Annie Singer.
Bloomberg new app strat
Bloomberg thinks apps are the key to its mobile future. The publisher has redesigned its mobile apps to feature day-parted content as well as quicker access to videos, market data and other relevant content. It’s the first in a series of apps Bloomberg’s 20-person apps team is working on, including a video app that “rethinks” how on-demand and live video can be delivered to screens. “Apps are the new magazines and newspapers,” said Scott Havens, global head of digital for Bloomberg Media.
How marketers use Twitter now
Twitter may be waning in popularity among some publishers, but marketers aren’t discounting the platform entirely, at least not yet. While the platform has become less compelling to brands from a marketing perspective, it remains a crucial arrow in their customer service quiver. “We’ve always looked across the spectrum, talked to our customers where they are and never gone all-in on one platform versus another,” said Matthew Glick, senior director of global creative and content marketing.
Confessions of a digital exec at a legacy magazine group
For the latest in our Confessions series, in which we grant anonymity in exchange for candor, we spoke to a digital chief at a legacy publisher about why some traditional media companies are “in denial” about the future of digital — and why he believes blaming platforms for publishers’ revenue troubles is lazy.
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