People are still much more likely to use smart speakers for music and weather than news. But that could change as news organizations design news briefings specifically for the speakers.
Plus: How your favorite shows are covering the midterm elections, The Washington Post named its daily host, and the Spiro Agnew content you’ve been craving.
Well, maybe not easily, but an NYU team is building a tool to save the entirety of a news app (including underlying libraries and frameworks), as well as a digital repository to hold them for future audiences.
“Our glass slabs will be punctuated by pop-out cameras, foldable displays, hole-punched notches, and invisible fingerprint sensors. These features will be marketed as innovations. Some will be innovative. Some will just be weird, in the way that tech inevitably feels forced when design decisions are borne out of a need to make mature products appear exciting and new.”
Reuters Institute for the Study of JOurnalism / Emma-Leena Ovaskainen
For one, “longform scrollytelling.”
Reynolds Journalism Institute / Madeleine Bair
“As we talked to community organizers about what approaches they find most effective in reaching Latino immigrants, two strategies came up again and again: in-person engagement and mobile messaging.”
The Information / Wayne Ma and Juro Osawa
“Google is also preparing a mobile app for internet search in China that will comply with local censorship laws, an effort . The company is developing the apps in Mountain View where its headquarters are, and mainland China, where it has offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Journalism.co.uk / Marcela Kunova
“News With Friends uses an algorithm which ranks stories based on editorial choices media research company Kaleida observes from leading publishers; through their tools which put stories in context and enable people to compare and contrast views; and via the social features that fuel informed and intimate conversations.”
Digiday / Mark Weiss
“73 percent of publisher executives surveyed by Digiday say at least at least 25 percent of their commerce revenues now come from mobile devices.”
Digiday / Kerry Flynn
HQ’s sole revenue strategy, for now, is akin to a sponsorship where brands pay for game takeovers. For example, NBC paid for a takeover of The Voice. On May 14, HQ players had a chance to win $50,000 and a trip for two to the show’s finale. The Voice game on HQ, which aired at 11:30 p.m. ET, reached 1.4 million players. NBC’s ratings for 18- to 34-year-olds, as well as viewers aged 12 to 17, was the best for a Monday episode since the first live show of the season, evp of digital for NBC Entertainment Rob Hayes said.
Digiday / Sahil Patel
“The NBCUniversal broadcaster, which has Spanish-language rights to air every World Cup game in the U.S., said between 48 and 51 percent of its live digital viewers consistently watch the games on their smartphones. The other half flips between connected TV and desktop streaming, said Peter Blacker, evp of digital media and emerging business for NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.”
Digiday / Max Willens
“Transitioning to the IAB’s standard has caused a ‘double-digit percentage’ drop in downloads for many of its shows, Wondery said. That hit is slowing the transition that both producers and ad buyers say is necessary to attract more ad dollars. ‘It is the right thing to do,’ Wondery CEO Hernan Lopez said. ‘We certainly hope agencies will notice we’re taking the first step.'”
NPR / Elizabeth Jensen
“NPR puts alerts into two categories: Breaking news that subscribers need to know now and feature alerts, which cover investigative work and original reporting that NPR wants to highlight, as well as live event coverage and new podcasts or programs. (New programming alerts are supposed to be “rare and far between,” per the guidelines.)”
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