Knowledge Bridge

//Kevin Anderson /September 7 / 2012

Required reading: Newspapers turn to video for new revenue opportunities

In our latest round-up of important digital media stories that we spotted in the past week, we look at mobile and social media trends with an added focus on the future of TV and online video. As broadband services develop in your country, video will become an important element of your digital strategy, whether you’re a television station or not. Major newspapers including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are expanding their video offerings, not just because their audiences are engaging with video but because they see an advertising opportunity that can provide them with a promising increase in revenue.

Mobile

Report: 40 percent of mobile ad clicks are fraud or accidents

Uh oh – we’ve covered the challenges facing news organisations and social networks looking to monetise their growing mobile audiences, and now a report from TradeMob says that of the people who do click on mobile ads, 40 percent of those clicks were either fraud or accidents. It’s one of the reasons that mobile advertising is lagging behind online ads.

Android winning the battle against Apple’s iOS in Southeast Asia

Ericsson ConsumerLab looks at which mobile OS is winning the smartphone wars in Southeast Asia. Not surprisingly, the huge number of Android devices is outpacing Apple’s iPhone. Apple has a strong position in Singapore, Australia and Vietnam. However, Android trounces Apple in New Zealand and Malaysia. Nokia’s Symbian still has a pretty strong presence in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Alvin Yap Talks about Monetizing the Feature Phone Industry [INTERVIEW]

The CEO of the mobile gaming company TMG talks about how they are earning revenue not just from smartphone owners but also those who own more basic feature phones. He offers great insight into making money using premium content on basic phones in countries like Indonesia. The interview has some great lessons on earning money from mobile not just in southeast Asia but in markets around the world.

Social media

Hootsuite Now Available in Indonesian (Bahasa)

Hootsuite is one of many social media dashboards applications that allow you to manage your social media presence across many services and accounts. Like many of these dashboard tools, it not only works on your desktop computer but also has apps for the iPhone and iPad and also for devices running Android and for Blackberry smartphones.

While Hootsuite operates in a crowded market, it is one of the best social media dashboards available, especially seeing as a number of similar tools have either lost their edge, such as Tweetdeck, which has really floundered since its purchase by Twitter. Here at the Knowledge Bridge, we use Hootsuite to share our favourite links and let you know when we publish some on Twitter, LinkedIn and our Facebook fan page. Hootsuite has free and premium options. The premium options allow you to add more accounts and provide you with more metrics on how your content is being shared. It allows you access to different languages, including the recently announced Bahasa to help journalists in Indonesia keep up with their social media mad audiences.

Digital Advertising and Television

Report from US figures show that Online advertising could surpass TV by 2017

New innovations, such as mobile advertising and increased use of online video, contribute significantly to the sharp growth of online advertising. The proliferation of online radio services, including Pandora and Spotify, will also bolster online sales at the expense of terrestrial radio.

Billy Hulkower, senior analyst for technology and media at Mintel, says:

Print media has lost the most to online media in terms of ad purchases, but the demographic element of people who are not DVRing their commercials and skipping them has tended for years to be lower-income and older households. If you’re advertising a luxury product, it already hasn’t made sense for a long time to have a large TV budget.

He sees two reasons why advertisers haven’t made the move from TV to online. Check out the interview to find out what those two reasons are.

Newspaper groups look to video for new revenue opportunities.  

NYTimes.com gets a revamped video player

Video is likely to play a pivotal part in the New York Times’ transition from a traditional print-based business into a modern, multi-platform publication. The NYT’s bigger focus on video gears up to position itself as a broader media content provider. With the new video product, viewers can thoroughly engage with videos, explore vast archives and perhaps discover content they were not expecting to find. Audience engagement is a new focus of modern journalism. Yet over the course of the half of 2012, digital advertising revenue still only accounts for a quarter of that print advertising revenue. The New York Times parent group saw revenues of $2.3 billion in 2011. Whether the video archives and channels will increase its online publication’s subscription is still open to questions.

Wall Street Journal rolls out video network powered by smartphone

The Journal’s online video effort until now focused on WSJ Live’s TV-news-style video segments with anchors and on-screen graphics. WorldStream complements that with simple, short video reports. Raju Narisetti, WSJ Digital Network’s Managing Editor said the thinking behind WorldStream is that audiences crave multimedia and have an appetite for instantaneous “raw” video, not just highly produced TV-like formats. And advertisers “are willing to pay premiums” to reach that audience via video ads.

Article by Kevin Anderson