10 Things to Know This Week if You Work in News Media, 4/2/18 Edition

Apple tries to charm publishers, Snap cutting hundreds, redesigns rev up, and Google on the rise…To be ready for this week ahead in media, here’s what happened last week.

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#10. Bustle Digital Group is adding The Zoe Report, a fashion website targeted at young women, to its portfolio of brands, which includes Bustle, Romper, and Elite Daily. The acquisition and press surrounding it suggests that Bustle Digital Group aims to expand its audience among young women by adding more lifestyle brands in the future.

#9. Executing on announcements made late last year, Snap Inc. is cutting 100 employees in its advertising operation; it released 120 engineers in early March. Following three quarters of disappointing revenue and user growth in 2017, Snap lowered its ad prices dramatically and surpassed investor expectations in Q4 of last year.

#8. About 100 editorial and production staffers at Onion Inc., the parent company of The Onion, Clickhole, and A.V. Club, have unionized. Onion Inc. staff cited Gizmodo Media Group’s positive experience with unions in the decision. (Both companies are owned by Univision’s Fusion Media Group). They join Writers Guild of America, East, which in recent years has been increasingly active in organizing digital news sites.

#7. Media companies brought in some serious dough last week. Podcast producer Wondery has raised $5 million in its latest round of fundraising for a total of $8 million since launching in 2016. The new investments will fund new original podcasts as well as audience growth for existing content. Separately, Gwyneth Paltrow’s ten-year-old wellness website Goop raised $50 million to expand internationally in a recent Series C round; 35% of its readership is outside of the U.S. It’s growing quickly — Goop’s revenue has tripled over the last two years.

#6. The Guardian shared the newest figures on gender pay gaps in Britain. Among the industries the update covered, media had the smallest gap, although all remained in the double digits. Last week, The New York Times reported improved representation of women across the company but showed little change for people of color.

#5. As part of its effort to become publishers’ tech partner of choice, Apple is adding publishers to its current test of selling ads on Apple News articles, enabling them to serve direct-sold ads on Apple News articles as well as their websites. While the iOS platform has helped these forthcoming partners generate a bit more traffic or subscribers, this will be the first opportunity for many to earn revenue directly from the platform. The current test does not allow programmatic ads.

#4. Playboy deactivated all of its directly-managed Facebook accounts last week, becoming the first major American publisher to do so in response to the platform’s data controversies. Playboy also cited the platform’s “sexually repressive” policies, though it will remain on Facebook-owned Instagram. In February, Brazil’s largest newspaper left the platform after Facebook announced algorithm changes.

#3. Meredith is aligning the ad sales structure of its newly acquired Time Inc. titles with its existing one. At Time Inc., sales teams organized around industry categories like food or women’s fashion; at Meredith, they are organized around specific titles. The strategy aims to elevate specific brands and strengthen ties with advertisers. Meredith will integrate Time Inc.’s branded content studio into its digital business unit.

#2. Chartbeat research finds that Google Chrome’s content suggestions feature is one of the fastest growing sources of publisher traffic on Android (the research is not tracking iOS). In 2017, it grew 2,100%, referring 341 million visits per month to publishers, reflecting the burgeoning role Google plays in publisher traffic as well as individuals’ content consumption

#1. Politico redesigned its homepage last week, its first major update since 2014.

Why it matters: The homepage is back. It’s part of publishers’ pivot to readers as they focus on generating loyal users and keeping them on their sites, especially as social referrals become less dependable.

A variety of publishers have recently rethought their homepages and landing pages in an effort to cultivate core audiences:

• Politico redesigned its homepage after seeing more than 30% year-over-year growth in users coming directly to its homepage. It seeks to capitalize on and improve this figure with faster load times and more featured content with a new “Quick Pops” section and a carousel of Politico Magazine stories.
• Vox Media debuted a new take on landing pages with the launch of “packages,” a collection of related stories. A package has its own homepage with an introduction, table of contents, and story visuals and links.
• Techcrunch rebuilt its article pages to pop out of its homepage, allowing users to continue accessing much of the main feed. Scrolling past the end of an article cancels users out of the pop-up and re-serves the homepage.
• NBC News is beta testing its new digital platform across desktop and mobile. In addition to encouraging deeper engagement, the redesign aims to distinguish NBC’s sub-brands from each other while maintaining a cohesive, recognizable color pallette.
• CNN Digital plans to introduce a slate of subscription products this year, and its VP of Programming contends that the homepage can help generate loyalty.

Look for. How Politico and other publishers continue to evolve their digital design in accordance with their audience and advertising strategies. Most publishers are serving two different “U”s in their UX: the advertiser and content consumer.

This post is adapted from the April 2nd issue of The Idea. For more news briefs, analysis, and Q&A with media innovators, subscribe to The Idea, Atlantic Media’s weekly newsletter covering the latest trends and innovations in media.