Digital publishing news for October 22, 2013
American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) has released new guidelines for native advertisements. Ad Age’s Michael Sebastian reports, “New language suggests magazines use the term “sponsored content” to help set apart native ads, which usually are designed to mimic a site’s editorial content. Native ads should also include “a prominent statement” or “What’s This?” link at the top to explain the origins of the article, the new guidelines say.”
The new guidelines also note that sponsored content should not use the same font and style as the editorial content on the page. That is definitely going to ruffle some feathers. Sebastian adds, “ASME studied how The Atlantic and The New Yorker approach sponsored content for examples of how to do it right, according to Mr. Holt. Both titles have introduced sponsored articles this year, he said, without confusing readers. (The Atlantic caused a minor uproar when it published an article sponsored by the Church of Scientology that some people said wasn’t sufficiently labeled. The magazine has since corrected course, Mr. Holt said.)”
HGTV Experiments with Digital Watermarks
Ad Week is reporting that HGTV Magazine is experimenting with new digital watermarking technology. Lucia Moses writes, “With HGTV, readers will be able to use their smartphone or tablet to scan items from the magazine’s popular High/Low List, a regular section that’s been expanded to nine pages with this issue. Users will be taken to an HGTV-branded landing page where they’ll be able to tap to buy direct from the product page on the given retailer’s website or share to Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. Fiat is sponsoring the section and the technology.” HGTV will know the number of scans per item and how many people shared the item and where they shared it.
[text_ad]
35% Of Americans Own A Tablet
A new Pew Internet study shows that 35% of Americans 16 and older own a tablet. The study also has details specifically about e-reading devices. “The share who have e-reading devices like Kindles and Nooks has grown to 24%. Overall, the number of people who have a tablet or an e-book reader among those 16 and older now stands at 43%.” After the holidays, this number is sure to rise.
Stop Worrying About <b> Vs. <strong>
Search Engine Land is reporting about a new video from Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts. In the video Cutts reassures us that there is not preferential treatment between using the <b> tag versus the <strong> tag when formatting your documents. Amy Gesenhues writes, “Cutts recalled answering this question in 2006, saying there was no difference in how Google treats the <strong> tag and the <b> tag when it came to ranking, scoring or other search factors. He added the same is true for or the <em> and <i> tags when using italics.” Phew… One less thing to worry about.
Pogue Headed to Yahoo
This is one of the more interesting job changes we’ve seen this year. The New York Observer is reporting that New York Times reporter David Pouge is leaving to go work for Yahoo. Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke writes, “Mr. Pogue was swayed by what he called CEO Marissa Mayer’s “’try stuff’ atmosphere” at what she calls “the world’s biggest startup.” Sounds like Yahoo has a very lean start-up atmosphere.
