Digital publishing news for September 17, 2013
It looks like “native advertising” has caught the eye of the Federal Trade Commission, again. Paid Content reports,”On Monday, the FTC announced that it will hold a workshop on December 4 about native advertising and the “blurring of digital ads with digital content.” In the meantime, the public can offer its two cents by sending in thoughts and idea topics for the workshop.
“This is the second time the FTC has formally announced an inquiry into native advertising. Jeff John Roberts writes,”In May, the agency issued new disclosure obligations related to small screen ads and social media.” I’m sure this won’t be the last time they look into native advertising either.
New York Times Unveils New Live Ad
AdWeek is reporting that The New York Times has unveiled a new ad unit that features a live video stream of conference. Lucia Moses writes, “Bank of America is running a takeover unit at the top of the NYTimes.com homepage that when clicked, will activate a Webcast of the Times’ Schools for Tomorrow education conference. It’s the first time an advertiser has hosted a live Webcast of a Times conference within an ad unit.”
“The ad unit is expected to carry the entire all-day conference, which was scheduled to kick off at 7:45 a.m. Tuesday. BofA videos featuring Sal Khan, the founder of the online education site Khan Academy and a keynote speaker of the conference, will play until the start of the conference, of which BofA is a sponsor. (No annoying auto-play ad here; you have to click to activate the ad, and the player will stay confined to the banner ad. The ad is a homepage-only experience, too, so it won’t follow the viewer if he or she leaves the page.)” AdWeek is also reporting that The Times will be using other ad metrics to gauge engagement, like how long a viewer watches that live stream and how many times they come back to watch the feed throughout the day.
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New Standards for Audience Metrics in Digital Publishing
Media Daily News is reporting that Adobe & the MPA have released new metrics for digital publishers. Erik Sass writes,” The new metrics, formulated by magazine publishers in consultation with Adobe, establish a baseline for comparison by focusing on four key measures: accumulated readership over a given time period, accumulated sessions over that period, accumulated time spent per reader, and accumulated sessions per reader.” These new metrics will be audited by the Alliance for Audited Media. Not all publishers use Adobe for digital publishing (at Mequoda, we love Mag+ ) so they have published theses standards so other vendors can make them part of their digital publishing systems. With the MPA’s backing it looks like these will become the standards to go by.
Tesoro Business Media Acquired by Stagnito Media
minOnline is reporting that Stagnito Media has acquired Tesoro Business Media for an undisclosed amount. Steve Smith writes, “Stagnito is composed of seven brands: the flagship Private Label → Store Brands, Convenience Store News, Convenience Store News for the Single Store Owner, Progressive Grocer, Progressive Grocer’s Store Brands, The Gourmet Retailer and Hispanic Retail 360. They serve the b2b information needs of convenience, grocery and specialty food/kitchenware retailers through an integrated portfolio of magazines, websites, digital newsletters, conferences and custom media.” Stagnito plans to incorporate Tesoro’s Store Brands Decisions into their Private Label → Store Brands title.
Stagnito has been on buying spree over the last year, “In Oct. 2012, the company acquired Private Label, Private Label China and Private Label International from E.W. Williams Publishing. That resulted in Stagnito’s Store Brands becoming Private Label → Store Brands,” Smith added.
