Digital publishing news for June 25, 2013
Possibly inspired by social media and user-generated content, there’s an emerging trend in publishing, and that’s co-created magazine content. PBS reports that “global media publisher Bonner Group is experimenting with co-creation at Olivia, an established women’s magazine in Finland with a readership of about 130,000.” I’ve seen user-generated magazine issues before at publications like Budget Travel, but never a system like this.
“In 2011, Olivia launched its co-creation platform, MyOwnOlivia (Oma Olivia), on which readers and journalists collaborate to produce feature stories in a sequenced and systematic but open process. Readers and journalists pursue stories together, and those stories are published in the print issues of Olivia magazine,” writes Tanja Aitamurto. The whole creation process is really fascinating, with game-like challenges, and they’re finding that the most important thing to the users is that they’re “heard” by the editors. Keep reading the article and also the study it was based on.
Hearst and Dr. Oz team up on a new print magazine
In the first quarter of 2014, Hearst will start publishing a new, currently untitled, Dr. Oz magazine, on newsstands, in print (and digital we assume). “Initial numbers for the Dr. Oz title: 350,000 copies available on the newsstand, plus an additional 450,000 copies that are being shipped to people who subscribe to other Hearst brands,” reports MediaBistro.
Also according to MB, “Oz’s glossy will also come packing a robust 800,000 rate base, with an expected 350,000 from newsstand sales.” The magazine’s target audience is women, and the goal of the magazine is to help them live a more fulfilling life. Launching a new print mag in the middle of the digital revolution? Hearst and Dr. Oz think they can!
Lower-priced tablets starting to win over the market?
Gartner analysts are reporting that pretty soon, it’s the lower priced tablets that will be dominating. “The increased availability of lower priced basic tablets, plus the value add shifting to software rather than hardware will result in the lifetimes of premium tablets extending as they remain active in the household for longer,” said Gartner research director Ranjit Atwal as reported by TabTimes.
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iPad editions kicking butt in ad revenues
Kantar Media and the Publishers Information Bureau is saying that since last year, ad revenues on the iPad have seen a 24% increase. “The report, which looked at 58 magazines with monitored print and iPad editions, found that the number of ad pages in the titles’ print editions was roughly flat in the first quarter, with 10,707. But the number of iPad ad units climbed to 5,961 in 2013 from 4,824 the year prior. Total print ad pages and iPad ad units combined increased 7.5% year-over-year,” reports AdAdge.
Twitter ads are taking off
It looks like Twitter’s ad platform is finally taking off now that it also offers analytics for free. MediaPost reports that “ad spending soared at Twitter and YouTube in May, while they dropped slightly at Yahoo and Facebook. Twitter dollars jumped 95%, while YouTube was up 43% compared to May 2012. Yahoo fell 4% and Facebook was down 1%.”
