Twitter, Fusion, Lad Bible, and Gawker are making news in the world of digital magazine platforms
As multiplatform publishing strategists who partner with many different kinds of media companies, we take a fairly liberal view of digital magazine platforms. That is to say, we consider digital magazine platforms to be anything that can help publishers deliver and distribute content.
So, your magazine website portal counts. Your digital magazine apps count. Your social media management counts. Your online magazine library counts. Your white papers and other products count. Your events count.
You get the point: Everything’s on the table. Everything plays a part. Some components evolve; some fall away; more are developed.
Digiday covers several publishers making news with digital magazine platforms … and one of the popular platforms making news itself.
Twitter, One of the Most Reliable Digital Magazine Platforms, Angers Publishers
That platform making news is Twitter, which has ceased including share counts on stories and posts, much to the displeasure of some publishers, Digiday reports. Twitter says the change is tech-based, but is offering the data for a fee through its proprietary service Gnip.
“For smaller publishers, Gnip is cost-prohibitive, said Patrick Costello, founder of Naytev, a company that helps brands and publishers improve their reach on social platforms. ‘A number of top publishers have been very frustrated by this change,’ he said. ‘It’s not something that they take lightly,'” Lucia Moses writes.
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“As news becomes increasingly distributed, publishers have placed more importance on getting readers to amplify their stories for them, and share buttons are one way to do that. Along with that comes the work of figuring out what gets people to read and share an article to their social networks, so the quality of analytics is critical. So for some publishers, the loss of the Twitter counts isn’t a big deal because they didn’t tell the full picture of sharing activity (such as retweets or sharing the article through the Twitter mobile app). There’s far more story sharing to Facebook, and at least as of now, Facebook hasn’t removed the share count from its social-sharing buttons.”
Fusion Goes Big on Distribute Content Team for Digital Magazine Platforms
You get the sense that Fusion is on top of this shift as well as any others that might come up. The publisher has hired 12 staffers strictly dedicated to social content production, eight of whom will work only on Snapchat, Digiday reports.
Lad Bible Joining Ranks of Mobile App Publishers
The Lad Bible is launching its first mobile app, Digiday reports, focusing on stronger content and video. Lad Bible has historically shown particular prowess on Facebook, but is now shifting resources to Snapchat, as well.
Is Kinja Fizzle a Bad Omen for Publishing Technologies?
Gawker is undergoing some major changes, one of which is the dissolution of its proprietary tech platform Kinja, which was billed as a commenting and publishing product that would generate licensing revenue, Digiday reports.
“The idea of selling tech to other publishers is probably foolhardy at best. It’s like fighting a land war in Asia. If your goal is to sell tech to other publishers, I would question that from the start,” Zemanta CEO Todd Sawicki told Ricardo Bilton.
“Service or product licensing works best when you’re helping publishers make money, not costing them money. … We shouldn’t criticize Gawker for building Kinja and creating this community. We should laud them for not giving up on it. In the post-Facebook world, it’s really their secret sauce.”
What digital magazine platforms are producing the best revenue opportunities for you? Let us know in the comments!
To read more about digital magazine platforms in the news, visit Digiday.
