{"id":773,"date":"2014-07-21T12:06:09","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T19:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/?p=773"},"modified":"2014-07-21T12:21:02","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T19:21:02","slug":"digital-publishing-innovation-summit-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/21\/digital-publishing-innovation-summit-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Publishing Innovation Summit, Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Very specific content can reach a giant audience through the emotional connections of sharing.<\/p><\/div>\n

Following Jacobson of The Blaze (see second post of this series<\/a>), Nick Rockwell of Conde Nast<\/a> presented \u201cHow Much does the Product Matter?\u201d Without a doubt, great content is the key. This was a driving point amongst many of the presenters – that quality content will eventually pay off in sustaining readership and engagement<\/strong>. Of course as this is a digital innovation summit, the questions at hand are how to cultivate engagement on the web and across platforms. Rockwell presented a slide demonstrating how much effort goes into UX development. Conde Nast has 70-80 people working on user experience and amongst all the companies at the summit, some 750 to a 1000 UX developers which adds up to an estimated budget of $120 million. Add another big publisher and it\u2019s easily $500 million a year going into user experience. However, a full-site redesign only generates a 7% lift in key performance indicators after 12 months. A 3 month recirculation optimization boosts session depth by 3.5% at best. Rockwell\u2019s point was that all the UX investment isn\u2019t paying off and more money should go into Ad design.<\/p>\n

He demonstrated how little ads have changed over the last 120 years by showing a banner add from the 1990s that looks like current day banner ads and then a newspaper ad from 120 years ago that was likely more effective. Considering ad space – television ads have 100% of the screen space, print magazines – 33-50% whereas web 5%. There is currently a lot of ad innovation happening through targeting, following clicks, but there needs to be more innovation in presentation. It\u2019s difficult for me to gauge his arguments as I have Ad blocker<\/a> on my browsers. I\u2019ve discovered that friends without ad blocker have a very different web experience than my own. However, there has been innovation in content distribution that requires the viewing of ads. Due to my ad blocker, last NFL season, around mid-season I was shocked during my Monday morning ritual of seeing highlights when the videos would not load unless I turned off my ad blocker. And of course, Hulu has attempted to re-established the television scenario, but with multiple tabs open, I just switch to browsing or reading while the ads play out. I imagine that before long, the ads will pause whenever I switch tabs.<\/p>\n

Stephen Loguidice of BuzzFeed<\/a> discussed the historical transformations of content distribution. He started off with a great visualization of the growth of the U.S. railroad system followed by pointing out the transformative power of the addition of photography in print, then the rise of television and the recent move to streaming content. Today, it\u2019s all about the social<\/em>. The new form of distribution is social feeds. The content that is shared and distributed via social feeds reaches the largest audience. BuzzFeed, of course, is all about how to create something for the way that people are consuming content. He pointed out that there are two underlying goals between sharing:<\/p>\n

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  1. We share to form community, because people are inherently social beings.<\/li>\n
  2. We share to build personal brand.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For companies and brands the questions of distribution needs to be changed from “What do they want?”<\/strong> to “What do we want?”<\/strong> There is no they, it is all of us, we are all consuming and sharing\u2026 we are the distributors.<\/em> The distributors are no longer some other entity or ad company. So we can ask ourselves, what is it that we like to share? Loguidice makes a pitch for the following emotions \/ sensibility for sharing:<\/p>\n