Now, when digital publishing is developing around the world at an extraordinary speed, and readers are increasingly willing to read through mobile apps, two global companies, Facebook and Google, are dominating the advertising and traffic market in digital space, forcing newspapers to change their existing business and distribution models.<\/p>\n
Is this a no-win situation?<\/strong><\/p>\n How about we start with a simple question \u2013 who is a publisher? Oh, yes, this is a person or a company who is responsible for creating, preparing and distributing printed or digital publications. Most of us can give a few examples of the world-known publishing houses like HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, or newspapers such as the New York Times or Washington Post.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s move on. What are the biggest social media platforms and technology enterprises? Probably, among the companies you have thought of, were Google or Facebook, am I right? They facilitate the sharing of information on a global scale.<\/p>\n Today, content creators have to be active on different social media channels. They are responsible for writing an article and promoting it. The mutual dependence between the publishing industry and the digital spaces is more complicated than it would seem at first glance. There is no doubt that the publishing process has changed; as a result, we need to redefine the concept of a publisher.<\/p>\n It is time to ask if the difference between the words “publisher” and “platform” is an etymological trifle or the cause of a conflict of interest?<\/strong><\/p>\n The point lies in the way we get and consume news today.<\/p>\n People scroll down Facebook, Twitter or other social sites many times a day, staring for just a few seconds at the titles and headers without going deeper into an article. We got used to having the latest news immediately.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\n No publisher in the history of journalism had such an impact on global news consumption as Facebook.<\/p>\n Therefore, it’s no wonder that publishers use digital solutions and social platforms that help them stay on the competitive market. This is a strategy used by more and more companies \u2013 it is about running a business based on digital platforms, using them primarily for promotional activities. All types of publishers has long been active in this way, promoting their content on Facebook or optimizing it for Google. Are the results really worth it?<\/p>\n Google and Facebook have dominated the network traffic and have consumed most of the revenue from digital advertising. It means that these two world companies are collecting revenue equal to what used to be a payment for high-quality journalism.<\/p>\n The social media offer information for free now, meanwhile content creators pay too little for the value they provide to users.<\/p>\n Facebook and Google are the most important sites for news traffic. According to publishing industry monitors Parse.ly<\/a>, by the end of 2016 Facebook was responsible for 45 percent of referral traffic to publisher sites, and Google 31 percent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\n Newspapers publishers in their business models focused mainly on the sale of advertising space, while Facebook or Google paid equally much attention to effectively reaching a highly profiled user and accounting for the effects of the campaign. Facebook’s advantage over the other media channel also results from the number of users many publishers can only dream about. What is more, Facebook and Google integrate on their platforms content created by both of these groups.<\/p>\n This digital duet determines how the content can be delivered, which text is a priority, what appears in searches and news channels without the participation of publishers who bear all the costs, while Google and Facebook yield most of the profits. And the most important advantage they gain is capturing the users\u2019 (readers\u2019) data.<\/p>\n It seems that newspapers need digital platforms<\/a> because of the possibility to reach more readers than before.<\/p>\n But the advantages of each platform are difficult to assess, and the use of them is associated with several problems for publishers:<\/p>\n In the face of the above mentioned doubts news publishers have to ask themselves what monetizing strategy they want to choose:<\/p>\n or<\/p>\n There is something that gives newspapers publishers a huge advantage \u2013 the content they create, which their readers want. Of course, only if their articles are relevant and substantial, not full of unreliable information focused only on achieving mass clicks by Internet users.<\/p>\n New division of roles has emerged. The giants can impose their own rules. First of all, they have permission on how information should be displayed. Another objection concerns a very important topic today. According to the publishers, the rules set by Google and Facebook are conducive to generalizations and the creation of fake news.<\/p>\n On the one hand, publishers appreciate the efforts of Facebook and Google to display content to users who would probably never reach for them. But on the other hand, the giants are currently dominating the Internet, so it is necessary to play according to their rules.<\/p>\n This results in the division of revenues from the market and also the risk of lowering the quality of journalism, an example of which may be fake news, which often cannot be distinguished from real information.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\n Global and rapid spread of false information forced the long-awaited debate on the rights and obligations of technology companies and social media platforms which are responsible for sharing content.<\/p>\n Protecting the independence of good journalism, which becomes a part of social media, is a challenge for publishers and platforms today.<\/p>\n In 2016, battered by the negative publicity around Facebook regarding \u201cfake news\u201d, Mark Zuckerberg retreated from his rigid position that his creation was \u201cjust a technology company\u201d to acknowledge that it was a \u201cnew kind of platform.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n News publishers are trying to understand and learn how to work with these powerful forces in the industry. The rapid adaptation of smartphones by the new type of readers has changed media consumption, transforming technology companies offering mobile apps and operating systems into information media.<\/p>\n Sir Martin Sorrell, the founder of the world\u2019s largest advertising agency, WPP, put it like this:<\/a><\/p>\n We have always said Google, Facebook and others are media companies and have the same responsibilities as any other media company\u2026 They cannot masquerade as technology companies, particularly when they place advertisements.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It would seem that the division that has functioned so far is simple and understandable.<\/p>\n Facebook as a company has to make an important decision. Do they want to function as a platform (technology company)? Should their service change its status to the publisher, and content to publications and, as a result, become the world’s largest publishing company?<\/p>\n As of the third quarter of 2018, Facebook had 2.27 billion monthly active users.<\/a> This \u201cplatform\u201d reaches more people than any media organization in history.<\/p>\n Over the years, news publishers have drowned in their customers’ data, but they have no ability or motivation to imagine what they can do with it. The data analysis has become an integral part of successful publishing, and along with giving data to dominating platforms, publishers realized that they lost something more valuable than money.<\/p>\n Platforms that are based on the use of data to build, run, improve and earn, thanks to their design will always have a huge advantage simply because they operate on a large scale. Publishers began to understand that technology companies know more about their readers than they do.<\/p>\n Now, in the face of Google and Facebook domination, publishers have to look for new sources of traffic and revenue:<\/p>\n The newspaper business model was traditionally based on ad revenues \u2014 it was about 80% advertising, 20% circulation<\/a>. A shift happened in 2014, primarily due to the fall in print advertising (and print publishing altogether) but also the increase in digital subscriptions.<\/p>\n The disappointment in digital ad revenue is pushing publishers to rethink monetizing strategies like paid subscriptions and paywalls,<\/a> despite the fact that social platforms and Google are to some extent based on free or cheap information flows.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\n The readers\u2019 attitude is changing and the acceptance of paying for online news is growing.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n What we are really seeing is a sort of back to the past situation \u2014 where, before Facebook, publishers had to grow their site and\u2026 everyone was focused on the diversification of sources. And then Facebook just became the easiest way to grow traffic.<\/p>\n According to Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School report:<\/a><\/p>\n Platforms, particularly Facebook, have dramatically altered their attitude toward news publishing<\/span> (\u2026).<\/span> Facebook added a Head of News Partnerships in the shape of former journalist Campbell Brown, hosting a series of workshops and hackathons focused on how to make Facebook better for journalists, and engaging in a vigorous program aimed at raising the issue of media literacy in the public sphere.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n For the publishing industry, it is important to ensure a united front so that they can negotiate more effectively. That is why American industry body called the New Media Alliance (NMA)<\/a>, which represents nearly 2,000 media outlets including some of the world\u2019s most influential publishers in the world, wrote to the US Congress demanding the anti-trust exemption, so they could collectively bargain with Facebook and Google.<\/p>\n New Media Alliance is going one step further, perceiving the platforms\u2019 activity as a threat to the freedom of speech. The complaint, isn\u2019t so much about the fact that newspapers\u2019 primary source of revenue came from classified listings and advertising \u2014 it\u2019s about freedom.<\/p>\n The NMA press release states:<\/a><\/p>\n Quality journalism is critical to sustaining democracy and is central to civic society. To ensure that such journalism has a future, the news organizations that fund it must be able to collectively negotiate with the digital platforms that effectively control distribution and audience access in the digital age.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n One of the solution to avoid further expansion from technological giant is to combine powers. If publishers create the unified front, speak with one voice in negotiations with Facebook and Google (pushing for stronger intellectual property protection, better subscription model support, and fair share of revenue and data), they can build a more sustainable future for the information industry.<\/p>\nSource of news<\/h2>\n
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Monetizing strategy in the digital reality<\/h2>\n
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Secret weapon<\/h2>\n
The truth about fake news<\/h2>\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nWho is who?<\/h2>\n
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No-win situation?<\/h2>\n
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Let\u2019s play together<\/h2>\n
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Has something changed?<\/h3>\n