This morning Upworthy.com, which crested at 30 million unique visitors in May thanks to a runaway viral hit, announced that they've started piloting sponsored posts to generate revenue, and shared with Fast Company a bit of their secret sauce. Founded 14 months ago by Moveon.org's Eli Pariser and Peter Koechley of The Onion, with Chris Hughes of Facebook (who's since left to take over The New Republic), Upworthy set out with the quixotic goal of making green-vegetable topics like gay rights, climate change, and cancer awareness as addictive as Doritos Tacos Locos and as shareable as LOLcats. And they've been really good at it, they revealed today. A social analytics company called SimpleReach reported that Upworthy's posts, helped along by 2 million Facebook Likers and 1 million email signups, were driving a startling 20% of all the social sharing they were tracking of published content on the web. And a separate company called Scanvine rated them #1 of the top 25 most shared sites. Take these mystery metrics with a heavy grain of salt, or say they just got lucky, but take note that a site made up of 80-90% reshared videos, most made by amateurs and activists and posted to YouTube, is pulling in some serious traffic. Here, according to Pariser and Koechley, are the top three rules they've arrived at through their testing that are different from what traditional media does. Spend half your time on the headline "People put way too much emphasis on the specifics of the... Continue reading at 'Fast Company'
[ Fast Company | 2013-07-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 10/03/2011 - 09:04 Social media expert and author Jon Reed has urged independent publishers to join social networking sites, identifying them as a way of "levelling the playing field". read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Caroline Horn Publication Date: Thu, 03/03/2011 - 07:22 Former childrens laureate Michael Morpurgo and Tracy Beaker author Jacqueline Wilson have spoken out in support of the Guardians new book website for children, which launches today [3rd March] on World Book Day. The site,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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New York--There was a question during the morning session today at the Media Dealmakers Summit that crystallized what a lot of people are thinking about the future. "Are tablets and e-readers the future of media?" For George F. Colony, CEO of Forrester Research, the answer was simple: "Yes.... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-02-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Over the last few months the tech industry has been inching toward ebook nirvana. For one thing, gadget makers keep improving e-readers while slashing prices. (I'm going to renew my bet that Amazon will begin selling the Kindle for less than $100 by the end of the year.) The bigger story,... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2011-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Jones Apple has confirmed that it wants a cut of Amazon's Kindle sales made via its iPad and iPhone apps. The giant hardware company has said that it will no longer allow apps to sell content via a separate browser link, unless customers are also given the option of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Apple has moved to block third party app developers from selling content, such as ebooks, outside of the app store, leading to speculation that it wants a cut of digital purchases, even when they are made via apps such as the Kindle app. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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