Texture, Lumina, and the ACPA are among the media companies making online publishing news; plus, industry leaders provide an outlook for the rest of 2016
Hey, how about some online publishing news that doesn’t include ad blocking or Facebook Instant Articles? Well, you’ve come to the right place.
What we like best about this batch of online publishing news is that it demonstrates just how proactive digital magazines are being about devising and implementing multiplatform publishing strategy, and how newsstand services beyond the big three of Facebook, Apple, and Google are in it to win it.
FolioMag.com has recent articles on these subjects and several others. Let’s see what direction the business is heading in this week!
Texture and Atavist Magazine Launch Series in Large-Scale Content Effort
Texture, formerly Next Issue Media, is rebranding more than just their name. They have entered into content series partnership with digital native The Atavist Magazine, and the results, so far, are encouraging, FolioMag.com reports.
“It’s gotten a lot of traction with our subscribers. They see it as a real positive. We thought that this was a logical extension to push this notion of very high-quality journalism that generally is not widely available and to really promote it. I think that, for us, it’s clearly a value add in a major way for our subscribers and it shows that exceptionally well-written, well-researched pieces can get a lot of airplay. It’s a fairly lengthy story, even in the individual segments,” Texture CEO John Loughlin tells Greg Dool.
“I think what we’re seeing is this opportunity to expose content in a unique way, and in a way that generates a lot of interest from people that ordinarily wouldn’t be in the slip stream of one brand or another. We hear that over and over. People love the magazines that they love; they’re dedicated readers. But there’s a surprise and delight in coming across stories that they would ordinarily never see. [The magazine] is gaining more and more followers and notoriety, but like many emerging brands, in the absence of huge marketing budgets, you struggle for exposure. The beauty here is that we’ve got enormously avid readers of premium content, and they’ve got terrific editors and a very compelling story.”
And what about future plans for Texture subscriptions and publisher partnerships?
“I think we’ll be doing more and more of this. Part of it is this notion of finding existing partners like The Atavist, but also I would not be surprsied if in the next several months we are creating original content, as well, with contributing editors and writers. I think it’s sort of a natural progression from where we are as a service,” Loughlin told FolioMag.com.
“Our subscribers are paying $15 a month. Part of our obligation is to create an experience that’s better than free. One of the ways you do that is by creating and presenting content that is original, isn’t readily accessible, but is of high quality.”
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Niche Publisher i-5 Rebrands to Lumina Media
Another rebranding, this one from niche publisher i-5, which is now Lumina, FolioMag.com reports.
“Lumina better represents the energy of our new company direction, and the power that our iconic content has to inform, entertain, and delight our passionate audiences,” Lumina Chairman David Fry said in a statement.
“Our logo and our new tagline, ‘You’ll Love This,’ highlight the tight relationship between author and reader in today’s media world. Content and conversation come together to create a unique value for our consumers, our business audience and our corporate partners.”
An Insider’s Look at the Importance of Event Production
Excellent FolioMag.com interview with Dr. Cindi Love, executive director of the American College Personnel Association, about her group’s emphasis on events as a specialty publisher.
We publish the leading Tier 1 journal in the field, the Journal of College Student Development. As a result our events have a large draw for leading scholars as well as practitioners. We have always been heavily engaged in individual program sessions led by these individuals. They are our content experts and the foundation upon which we build the international dissemination of best practices and scholarship in our field,” Love told Tom Zind.
“In the past, all of this dissemination was done face to face at the convention or institutes or in print publications. Today, we hybridize virtually everything that we produce with a face-to-face element and a digital on-demand element.”
Publishing Executives Give Insights for Rest of 2016
Great slide show on FolioMag.com featuring a half-dozen industry leaders holding court on how they see 2016 shaking out. It is already spring, after all! Among talk of native and programmatic, content market research, machine learning, and more, there’s this:
“Trust continues to be front and center. We very much see a trend in defining and reminding the industry what it really means to be ‘premium’ – trusted – in the marketplace. Premium publishers work to build value for consumers and advertisers. They put more into the media ecosystem than they take out,” Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint told Dool.
“We’ve already seen advertisers begin to catch up to the importance of knowing that their media dollars are going to trusted media brands. The drive for transparency, context and quality of inventory is a healthy outcome for premium publishers, advertisers and most importantly consumers.”
Are you making online publishing news? Let us know in the comments!
To read more online publishing news, visit FolioMag.com.
Isn’t Chipotle in the midst of a big re-branding effort post food re-call? Moving to compete against the fancy burger chains with their latest offering. Not sure if this is a good move on their part, but time will tell.