Flummoxed by the 'Broken' Ad-Supported Publishing Model, Medium Slashes Staff

Medium, the online publishing company started by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, is changing its business model and cutting a third of its staff.The company, which has raised $132 million in venture capital from investors including Greylock Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, relied on the same model as other media companies to make money: placing ads on articles. In a blog post Wednesday, Mr. Williams called that model "broken," because it serves the goals of corporations and not the readers of content."We are shifting our resources and attention to defining a new model for writers and creators to be rewarded, based on the value they're creating for people," Mr. Williams wrote. "And toward building a transformational product for curious humans who want to get smarter about the world every day." Continue reading at AdAge.com Continue reading at 'Advertising Age'

[ Advertising Age | 2017-01-05 00:00:00 UTC ]

Other news stories related to: "Flummoxed by the 'Broken' Ad-Supported Publishing Model, Medium Slashes Staff"


The 50 Most Read Technology Stories on Adweek.com in 2016

As we wind down for the holidays, we're looking back at the stories that were most popular among Adweek.com readers over the course of the year. Today, we look at stories from our Technology channel. 50. Facebook Vertical Video Ads Just Went Live and Are Evidently Producing Great Results 49.... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-12-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Year in Preview: 2017 will be the year that platforms pay up

Facebook's paying for live video and Snapchat's evolving the terms of its publisher compensation in 2016 were signs that the platform giants will pony up for content. But it's not out of altruism. What platforms care most about is scale. And only a select few media companies that have the scale... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-12-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Ad Age's Magazines of the Year 2016: See All the Winners

It's a challenging time for magazine publishers, right? Of course, because it's a challenging time for anyone in the business of creating content and attracting audiences -- even (or especially) pure-play digital companies.The truth is, there are countless Silicon Valley startups, propped up by... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2016-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


In the shadow of Facebook, Twitter loses traction with publishers

Social publishing is becoming a zero-sum game. As media companies clamor for readers on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, Twitter is losing the attention battle. Publishers are waking up to the fact that Twitter doesn't have the audience scale, visual storytelling tools and ad products that the... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-12-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


How Instagram recruits college football teams to market Stories

Instagram has recruited seven colleges to use Instagram Stories as part of a new initiative to show the behind-the-scenes atmosphere on game days through the rest of the college football season. For the program, Instagram is also providing training and insights on Instagram Stories. The approach... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-11-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Snapchat is raiding top competitors for talent, and charging top dollar for ads

Snapchat is on a hiring spree as it prepares for an IPO, raiding everyone from Google and Facebook to old media for talent. Snapchat is also trying hard to woo advertisers. It’s hiring ad sales talent, launched an API and integrated third-party measurement firms. Meanwhile, publishers are... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-11-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Pinterest Enlists Top Creators and Production Shops to Craft Posts for Marketers

As Pinterest works to build an advertising business that rivals heavyweights like Facebook and Google, it's launching a creative program with a handful of production shops, publishers and creators aimed at making it easier for brands to create posts for the platform. The new program is called... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-10-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


At Industry Conference, Publishers Vent About Power of Social Media Companies

The angst was palpable at Digital Media Strategies 2016, an annual industry conference held on Wednesday and Thursday at a hotel in Times Square.While there are myriad challenges facing the media companies of today, combatting the power and market share of the social media giants -- often called... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2016-09-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


PRH voted fifth best place to work in UK media

Penguin Random House has been voted one of the top five media companies to work for in the UK, according to anonymous employee rating site Glassdoor, ahead of the BBC and Sky, and the only book publisher to make the top 10. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2016-09-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Twitter to Open Pre-Roll Video Ad Program to Influencers

Twitter is on a pre-roll.The service is opening its pre-roll video ad program to popular Twitter users, giving them a way to make money for their efforts.The ads play before the videos that people share on the platform, and they come with a skip button, much like the one on YouTube. Twitter has... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2016-08-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Memo to Magazine Media: Social Networks Are Not Altruistic

Social media doesn’t exist as a grand platform for your experiments. It exists to make money for its owners. The post Memo to Magazine Media: Social Networks Are Not Altruistic appeared first on Folio:. Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2016-08-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


How The Sun’s fantasy football site plans to make money on platforms

The Sun’s fantasy football site, Dream Team, has been a publisher in its own right for nearly a year. Like other publishers, it’s working out the route to monetizing social video, which means branded content. It has changed several things in its editorial strategy to help build a smoother path... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-08-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


NBCUniversal strikes deal for 'Harry Potter' films, theme park extras

NBCUniversal is continuing under the spell of “Harry Potter,” striking an exclusive deal with Warner Bros. to bring films of the juggernaut franchise to two NBCUniversal cable channels. The agreement, announced Monday, extends the relationship between the two media companies by conveying... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2016-08-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Facebook Stands Up To Clickbait, Day 2: The Media Responds

The media industry responded predictably to an announcement from Facebook Thursday that articles using so-called "clickbait" headline tropes will get lower billing in the social giant's all-important News Feed product, which publishers rely on for sweet, sweet referral traffic. (Sponsored posts... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2016-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Email Newsletters Hit a Speed Bump: Inaccurate Open Rates

Email newsletters are hot, with whole digital-media startups built on their backs and traditional publishers like The New York Times and The Washington Post producing them by the dozens.The conversational news roundup TheSkimm, for example, says it has over three million subscribers. Lena Dunham... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2016-07-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


As Publisher Reach on Facebook Goes Down, Video Is Going Way Up

Even as Facebook plans on de-emphasizing publisher-posted content in users' news feeds in favor of posts from friends and family, video seems to be on the way up. According to data compiled by SocialFlow, a social analytics company used by many major publishers, video content posted by... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-06-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


How Hearst's New Trend-Predicting Platform Will Benefit Advertisers

For the past two years, Hearst has been quietly developing its own hit predictor. Called Buzzing@Hearst, the analytics-driven platform analyzes thousands of articles across Hearst's vast array of properties, from newspapers and magazines to local TV stations, to determine which articles are... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-06-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Facebook's rise as news source hits publishers' revenues

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism report also finds importance of TV news is waning among young peoplePeople are increasingly heading to social media such as Facebook for news, making it more difficult for publishers to attract and make money from readers, according to an influential... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2016-06-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Publisher Reach on Facebook Is Down 42%

Publishers who have noticed their overall reach on Facebook has dramatically declined over the past few months can at least have peace of mind that they're not alone. According to an analysis by SocialFlow, publishers on Facebook have experienced a rapid decline in overall reach during the... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


BuzzFeed's Facebook Live Interview With President Obama Suffers a Bad Streaming Failure

BuzzFeed landed the biggest "get" for a Facebook Live interview in the young channel's history by nabbing a sit-down with President Barack Obama. Yet less than two minutes into the broadcast, the online publisher's video feed stalled and some 35,000 Facebook viewers were left with nothing to... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-05-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this