The Future of Media is Social, it Streams, and it Scales

The sites that succeed are those that get a lot of traffic. To sustain such traffic levels, some publications publish fresh content every six minutes#.

Some media sites have established the role that curation has in developing and transmitting news. Other sites aggregate content and information published around the Web and to social networks in an easy and visually compelling format.

I argued here that there's a value equation between aggregator and curators.

Traffic is good for advertisers -- and most publishing models are sustainable through advertising. Yet, there is also an argument to be made for relevant advertising. Ads as a service is how Josh Quittner, a veteran Time Inc. journalist turned editorial director at Fipboard put it in a recent interview#.

Flipboard defines itself as the world’s first social magazine. Quoting Laura Locke at CNET News:

Social magazines can be personalized according to a reader's interests by pulling in real-time content feeds from sources like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as RSS feeds from a variety of Web sites and publications.

Last July, Flipboard launched brand advertising on its iPad application in partnership with Condé Nast The New Yorker, Bon Appétit, and Wired. American Express and now Lexus are the first brands to take advantage of this partnership with the social-reading platform.

To date, the iPad app was downloaded 3.5 million times and got 550 million monthly "flips" to the 50 publishing partners that have agreed to share content through Flipboard. The company got $60 million in investment funds.

Those are some pretty compelling numbers. They show that the future of media:

• is social - reading, learning together and sharing with friends is more fun, and profitable
• it streams - having the ability to quickly glance through content and connect with personal social presences makes sites sticky
• it scales - updating and refreshing information and stories frequently is a sure recipe to get people to come back to your app or site and to bring their friends through sharing

All of which is sustainable when looking at it as a model for trade. Flipboard is one of my favorite apps, and I'm glad they're building up a way to be here for the long haul.

Publishing original material and providing value daily is not for the faint of heart. Without the support of a committed tribe who gives back is some way, commenting and sharing at a minimum, it is also quite easy to decide to trade on other activities that provide higher yield, like client work.

What I provide here is not memory -- the ability to find information is available to all of you who want to run a search and keep up with the news. I provide clock speed, which is connection with meaning. And that is to help those of you who self select to trade better and compete.

 

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Comments

[Brian Driggs]

I'm not entirely familiar with Flipboard, but it seems as though it's a sort of hybrid, digital magazine blog platform. In this way, how is implementing full-page advertising innovative?

From where I sit, it seems the "new" media is collecting accolades while merely tracing "legacy" media's footsteps in new shoes. If the objective is A) build an audience, B) monetize with advertising, how long before the NEXT "new media" arrives, relieving the current crop of innovators of their budgets?

I might be missing the point, because I see you clearly touched on it in this piece, Valeria, when you said, "there is also an argument to be made for relevant advertising." I read this to mean - and likely due to my own position on the matter - relevant advertising as in advertising which seeks to do more than generate leads and sales for the advertisers.

This all seems a vicious cycle of chasing the audience to move widgets, when it seems it would make more sense long term to provide meaning and value to the audience through platform+customer+client relationships.

[Valeria Maltoni]

You lost me on this one, Brian. Flipboard is an incredibly addictive publication, which a user can customize according to their preferences. On the back end, it collects information about what people stream as preferences, then serve up relevant ads.

Meaning and value needs to be embedded in the products as well. There are some brands I really don't care to talk to -- anywhere, any time. All I want is that it works. At the same time, I want to know if they update and upgrade. Apple is one example. Their products are great... they also advertise. I'm more concerned with the business model and the trade, than I am with how "social" a brand is, if that makes sense.

[Brian Driggs]

Sorry for losing you on this one, Valeria. Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to the future of journalism.

In the sense Flipboard allows a tailored user experience, I think it sounds excellent; even the smart ad placement. My concern is media outlets basing their business models on the mere display of advertising, rather than facilitating relationships between platform, partners, and audience.

As a business, I don't like the idea of shelling out cash for ad placement. I see paying CPM to place what is basically a self-serving interruption less effective than, say, working with the media outlet to apply our experience and strengths to delivering something which adds value to the user experience.

"Why are your readers going to care about our financial investment in your publication? How can we help them? How can we make them feel valued and build a meaningful, long term relationship? What does that look like?"

Traditional advertising - however cleverly selected - is primarily focused on generating revenue for the publication and the advertiser, with "informing the audience" almost an afterthought.

I think there is potential to do more. After all, "if at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it," right? :)

[Valeria Maltoni]

Your argument is why I ran the experiment of offering feed sponsorship to events and organizations here. It didn't work. It turns out, advertisers did not want to become part of the conversation and sponsor the community much. They just wanted their clicks. Well, then, they get what they want, don't they? I changed my model to just ads. Incidentally, that is also less work for me than looking to help a brand or event connect with my audience through relevance...

[Brian Driggs]

I see. This might explain why my efforts (however minimal) to implement something similar have been slow to launch!

If they just want their clicks, let them eat cake, but this still leaves the question of how media outlets can survive once the advertisers move on to the next big thing?

Is it "information products?"