Industry News
SELECTED ITEMS OF INTEREST TO THE MEDIA COMMUNITY
How Competition with Google in Search Might Change the News Publishing Business
Search is the main pipeline for delivering audiences to news publishers, and Google is the major supplier. For decades, the rules governing search have been based on Google's market dominance, which has been established to a large degree by the company paying billions of dollars to companies including Apple to make Google the default search engine on their products. But if the trial currently underway in U.S. District Court results in a ruling that Google has operated in violation of antitrust laws, the search landscape may be significantly altered. According to an analysis by Nieman Lab, possible results include:
- Development of new models for platform monetization.
- Apple appears to be in the strongest position to become the biggest search company other than Google.
- Publisher relationships with AI are likely to get more complicated and will potentially become more profitable.
Read more of the NiemanLab story here.
#media #strategy #consulting
News is the Newest Tiktok Sensation
The U.K.'s Daily Mail has become the largest news publisher in the world on Tiktok, making it a hit among millions of young (under 25) users. Its person-in-the-street ("Vox Pop") videos have been particularly popular. The Daily Mail's head of social video says it's become clear to legacy publishers that Tiktok provides a huge opportunity to reach a new audience. An analysis by Press Gazette also found:
- While Facebook is moving away from working with news publishers, and has a diminishing audience for news, Tiktok is a fast-growing news source across all age groups.
- Tiktok is increasingly working with news clients to boost revenue and has completed several successful commercial deals.
- Tiktok has been beta testing a "Premiere Pulse" product which places ads alongside content. So far the test has been limited to lifestyle publishers and has not yet been rolled out for news.
- Among the top 50 largest news Tiktok accounts are SkyNews, ABC News, and NBC News.
Read more of the Press Gazette story here.
#media #strategy #consulting
Clicking Takes a Licking
Referrals from Facebook and X to top global news sites have fallen dramatically during the past year, according to data from Similarweb. And though this decline was widely believed to be inevitable, many news organizations did little or nothing to prepare. Among the many ramifications of the referral falloff: Website business models reliant on social media clicks are no longer viable. In addition, a reliance on social media traffic kept many news publishers from developing their own consumer products.
Read more of the Axios story here.
#media #strategy #consulting
