Digital publishing news for July 2, 2013
New print on demand opportunities are were presented to magazine publishers at Retail Marketplace 2013 according to IPDA Publishing & Retail news. Ingram Content Group (ICG) presented options to help magazine publishers leverage their print on demand technology.
Karlene Lukovitz reports, “ICG’s core premise: Since POD print (and digital) products are created and fulfilled to match supply with demand (one-offs based on prepaid consumer orders or publisher-determined small numbers of copies)–and the publisher’s cost and profit margin are predetermined–POD capabilities minimize waste copies/costs, while enabling sales to new (including global) markets/customers. ICG also believes there is potential for employing POD in traditional retail channels.”
No magazine publisher has signed on yet but ICG publishers could see “15% margin on each copy sold via ecommerce.”
Email is Up, Facebook is Growing
Marcus Wohlsen from Wired has a new report that will make you feel optimistic about email marketing, even if it is in the retail segment. Custora, a e-commerce analytics platform just released a new study that showed “over the past four years, online retailers have quadrupled the rate of customers acquired through email to nearly 7 percent.” This based on data from 72 million shoppers on 86 different retail sites.
Over the same period of time customers that came and made purchases from Facebook were around 1%. Customers that connected and purchased via Twitter did not show up in the study at all. The reigning king of customer acquisition channels is organic search.
Playboy Gets Physical
In another example of a publisher pair up with a physical product, Playboy has announced that they will be releasing a premium electronic cigarette. Via the press release,”The Playboy Premium Vapor Collection includes disposable and rechargeable electronic cigarettes and hookahs in a variety of unique flavors designed to appeal to consumers who embrace the indulgent Playboy lifestyle.” Playboy e-cigarettes are part of a licensing deal with United Convenience Supply, LLC.
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More People Are Paying For News
According to the Online Publishers Association’s intelligence report, more people are starting to pay for news. In the new study administered by Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford show that there is “a significant shift in public attitudes towards digital news…Even among those who have never before made digital news purchases, willingness to pay for news in the future averages 14% overall and rises to 19% among heavy news consumers.”
One reason mentioned for the uptick in paid news consumption is that consumers are having a hard time finding high-quality free news sources. You mean The Onion doesn’t substitute for the New York Times?
Readers Believe in Magazine Brands
52% of MediaLife Magazine survey participants agreed that magazines need to “build out their identities beyond print.” Survey participants were least optimistic about weekly news publications. Participants had a dismal outlook for Newsweek. When asked about the future of Newsweek, 53 percent picked this answer: “There is no future.” Thirty-six percent predicted the title will find a buyer but won’t make a turnaround, and 11 percent said it has a bright future.
Times Idea Lab Standardizes Rich Media Ads in iPad App
Did you know that The Times had an Idea Lab? Well they do, and these ten people are responsible for any editorial innovations within the company.
In most recent news, they’ve added rich media ads to their iPad App that subscribers will actually be pretty happy with. “One ad unit … enables readers to download media from the iTunes store within the ad,” writes AdAge. “Another unit, which The Times said was inspired by panoramas in its editorial coverage, offers a 360-degree panorama of a retail store. It’s all part of a broader effort, which the paper is calling TimesAction, to simplify the creation and purchase of rich-media ads in its iPad app, and to allow advertisers to bring many of their ads over from its website to the app.”
These new ad units make it easier and cheaper to bring web ads onto the tablet making it easier to profit from the ads spots they sell.
New Head of Business Development at HuffPost
Media Bistro reports that Yaosh Ho is the new head of business development at Huffington Post. Ho has left his postion at Google as a deal maker. Does this seem like a trend to you? Maybe print magazines should start hiring executives from digital entities like Google, huh?
