As a heavy computer and phone user, I want to say to publishers.....
My media consumption is mostly based on smartphone and computer. This is mainly because like many other young people, I’m a student who gains access to news through the smartphone and the computer which I can carry to anywhere at any time. I do like watch TV. However, I stay outside a lot, which reduced my TV time. Besides, I haven’t that much time to sit in the couch to watch TV for a few hours especially with so much graduate homework.
Another reason why I use a lot of computer and smartphone is that these tools can include all forms of news: video, audio, photos and text. I can consume any form of news on mobile. I believe it’s not just me, far more people used a lot smartphone because of its popularity and the fast-paced life style. The emerging of the mobile platform leads to another topic: news app. If the app of a news agency is not user-friendly enough, the user would switch to another news agency. Thus, I believe the mobile app is crucial for one news agency’s long term development.
Second, half of my news consumption have paths of social media: Facebook, Twitter and Weibo( a Chinese social media). This means social media is an important platform of news. News can be fast transmitted by people’s sharing, comment and clicking “like”.
When I initiatively go to news websites, there are only about five news websites that I regularly go. For me, I can only catch up with at most five websites because when I have limited time to check news, I have some top websites that pop up in my mind. I’d not to check those unfamiliar source in my limited time.
Third, I think radio is coming back to the news market because when it can be accessed by the smart phone, I can listen to the news when I’m waiting for the bus or walking on the street. This is a big advantage when it is compared with text and video news. (Because you can’t watch news when you are walking.) Stats show that the number of Americans who have listened to a podcast have climbed from 9% to 17% during the years between 2008 and 2015.
Lastly, in most of the time, I have a very short time span reading news. Perhaps I could spend even less time once a time if I have a better English reading ability. Many times, I just check news when I’m in a line buying coffee. I only go back to watch the news if the caption catches me. So it’s important to catch readers within the first one minute.
Now, what possible inspirations could be to ads publishers from my media consumption habit? First, working harder to develop the mobile app and news website is important. This is the trend. More and more people watch news through these two platforms and companies put more advertisement on apps and websites.
Second, people’s attention span is short so the publisher would better to make ads appear earlier in the first one minute when readers start to read news. Chances for readers to see ads reduced much if the publisher put the ads at the bottom of the webpage.
Third, the ads publisher may consider to put more ads in radio shows since more people are becoming radio show listeners. I think ads should be put in the middle of the show but with a very short each time. Because too long ads would make listeners switch channel.
