An overview of content platforms and the consequences for publishers
It’s not just the publishers anymore that bring us the daily headlines. Tech giants are getting into it as well. Facebook has improved the user experience by making publishers’ content load faster — within Facebook. Apple now offers a new distribution channel with its News app. And Twitter curates content during important news events. All this leads to more reach — on the external platforms — but will also result in fewer visitors on the websites of the publishers.
From internal to external reach
In my 3-year stint as social media manager for De Telegraaf, I noticed a shift from ‘internal’ to ‘external’ reach. De Telegraaf is one of the best-known news brands in the Netherlands, and a relatively big portion of their audience still consists of direct visitors. But despite this large number of direct visitors I expect the scale will move in the coming years: audience reach on the website will be just a tiny portion of the reach on external platforms.
Now, external platforms are asking titles to publish natively, in exchange for a bigger inventory (i.e. the total volume of ad sales), leaving the publishers websites and apps more and more empty. As the UK title Marketing said: “That sound? Tumbleweed blowing through your website.”
In this article, you’ll find a list of the key initiatives out now — Facebook Instant Articles, Google AMP, Apple News and Twitter Moments — and what I consider to be are the direct implications of each initiative for publishers, both in opportunities and in risks.
1. Facebook Instant Articles
Facebook introduced Instant Articles as a way to optimize the user experience. Mobile web pages usually load quite slowly, some of them need up to 10 seconds to fully load. Instant Articles shows the user the entire article on Facebook and loads, well yes… instantly. This improved experience has resulted in more clicks and interactions for the article as users do not need to click through to the sender’s website anymore.
More readers, fewer unique visitors for start
Instant Articles get more engagement than posts that link to the publisher’s website, about 3.5 times more. As the Facebook algorithm gives more reach to articles that get more interactions, the article spreads faster and gets more readers. This means that the inventory on the Instant Article will be higher than the inventory on the article page would have been, had it been posted as a link.
This is good news for publishers, as they can keep all of the ad revenue when they sell the inventory themselves. But as Facebook so far allows only one banner position and publishers can’t sell via third party ad networks, chances are that the revenue turns out to be lower than on the publishers’ websites, especially because the publisher will attract fewer unique visitors. A new visitor has the highest value, as returning visitors tend not to click on a banner if they weren’t doing that during their last visit.
Publishers don’t really have a choice here. The algorithm will favor Instant Articles above the old link posts, because of the higher number of interactions. So either way they will lose visitors, by either publishing natively on Facebook, or getting less reach for their link posts. But with Instant Articles, publishers will be able to tap into a new audience and to grow their advertising volume.
2. Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Google AMP is an open-source Google program with — again — the goal to load mobile news faster. Their partners in the publishing world are pretty fancy, with the likes of New York Times, Vox Media, Financial Times, Gannett, Hearst, and the Huffington Post on board.
Publishers build their own mobile website within the AMP framework. This construction is quite different from Instant Articles, where the content is published on Facebook.
More readers, less organic traffic
Websites of publishers that built their mobile website in the AMP framework, load a lot faster. This will result in more clicks and readers.
Websites that are not optimized for AMP and lead directly to the publishers’ website, could end up below the fold and are less likely to be clicked on. Which means publishers will get less organic traffic. Organic traffic has proven to be very valuable, especially for niche sites and sections, as visitors to them have a different mindset. If a user searches for ‘advice on home insurance’, he visits a website with his wallet practically in his hand.
Nieman Lab has expressed concern about Google deciding what technologies should be used, stating: “This is another stop on the path to powerlessness for publishers.” Besides, as rich-media ads are not allowed yet, publishers need to worry about their revenue here as well.
3. Apple News
Since its launch in September last year, the Apple News app partnered with over a hundred publishers, including Time, Vice, The Atlantic, Business Insider, New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, each one hoping to earn a little something from the growing mobile news consumption. Apple allows publishers to keep all of the revenue when they fill the inventory themselves, and 70% of the revenue goes to the publisher if Apple’s iAd does the ad selling. Lately, however, Apple had some problems with reporting accurate user numbers, so unfortunately it wasn’t clear what the inventory and revenues were.
More readers, less direct visitors
I’m really curious to see whether the News app will make it, considering Apple Newsstand didn’t. If Apple succeeds in becoming the go-to app for news, individual news brands won’t be the primary contact with news anymore. As Nieman Lab states: “They’re raw material, feeding into broader platforms.”
Losing their spot at the home screen is a big threat for publishers, as direct visitors are loyal and extremely valuable. The homepage nowadays has become the place to experiment with other business models than just advertising, because loyal visitors are more likely to convert.
But of course, Apple News could also be a chance to attract a new audience. It will probably be a bigger chance for the niche and one-of-a-kind titles than for the broader news titles, as an algorithm based on reading behaviour will be better in discovering specific interests.
With the Internet of Surfaces on the rise, where a window or tablet is the possible carrier of news, we think Apple could be a possibly strong operating system in this market. Although Apple doesn’t have that much data and expertise in algorithm yet as Facebook, Apple News would be a great way to start.
4. Twitter Moments
Twitter is desperately looking for user growth and knows that the product is hard to understand when you’re a new user because of the stream of unorganized information. With Moments, Twitter is organizing itself and is curating tweets around news items or events. Twitter Moments will be a new kind of newspaper, telling the whole story and offering context. And to do that, Twitter doesn’t need the publishers’ content, as practically all news originates on Twitter. And it will be faster too.
Competition for liveblogging
When Twitter curates tweets from a publisher, it hides the url. Which got TechCrunch wondering: “Should publishers give up the milk if Twitter doesn’t want the cow?” And most important: Twitter Moments will be a big competitor for publishers’ liveblogs, as it will be faster and more diverse.
The value of showcasing
In conclusion, if advertising is the definite goal, publishers are thrilled to gain a bigger audience for their content. Even if this additional inventory doesn’t get the same revenue yet as it would have on their own website, the inventory gets bigger anyway.
When a publisher has other business models, then showcasing their content could be valuable on the long term. But in my opinion publishers need to have really unique and indispensable content to convert the occasional passersby to loyal, direct visitors.
