Digital Journal releases data showing strong growth in user-generated media
Our sister site Digital Journal, issued a press release today that is important for anyone following user-generated content and how it plays a role in media.
The press release is pasted below:
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TORONTO, Feb. 24 – Digital Journal, a global digital media news network, released data today showing strong growth in its online and mobile divisions.
Regarded as a pioneer and leader in crowd-sourcing and user-generated content, Digital Journal has 30,000 professional and citizen journalists, bloggers, photographers and freelancers in 200 countries around the world.
Today, the company released the following information related to growth:
Mobile growth
- Mobile website and smartphone apps attracting more than half-a-million pageviews per month and growing.
- Smartphone apps launched in mid December 2010 for Android, Apple, BlackBerry and Windows Phone devices in partnership with Polar Mobile.
- Smartphone apps downloaded 35,000 times since launch, currently growing by more than 5,000 downloads per day.
- Interactive mobile website allows anyone to post news, blogs, images and more from their smartphone.
Online growth
- Attracting millions of readers, doubling year-over-year entirely by word of mouth.
- Crowd-sourcing content from 30,000 members in 200 countries around the world.
- Paid out more than $100,000 to outside contributors so far.
- Digital Journal has published more than 100,000 news articles and 65,000 images from contributors in every major metropolis around the globe.
- Editors make more than 200 appearances on national TV, radio and in print each year.
Future of Media events
- Digital Journal is now running a semi-annual conference called Future of Media, a speaker series dedicated to discussing the future of media.
- Past speakers include executives from Facebook, Global News, CBC, CTV and more.
- Sponsors have included Dell, Rogers, Canada Newswire, Queensway Audi and more.
- Every event has sold-out, hitting capacity before doors open.
- Future of Media events widely regarded as must-see media events for executives in media, advertising and PR.
“Digital Journal is excited about its strong growth and global reach,” said Chris Hogg, CEO of Digital Journal, Inc. “With a content platform that is proprietary and automated, we’re currently looking at a number of potential strategic partnership opportunities.”
Digital Journal Platform & Technology
Digital Journal’s proprietary content platform enables qualified contributors to publish content such as news, blogs, images and video, as well as engage in discussions on important topics from their communities. The company’s platform enables content creation at scale, and ad revenue is shared with contributors based on how many pageviews and how much engagement their content attracts.
Digital Journal’s platform enables the company to scale from a hyperlocal focus to an international audience, with the ability to contact readers and contributors within 1 km (1/2 mile) of any geographic location in order to crowd-source content. That technology has been showcased in events such as the recent uprisings in the Middle East and Africa; when a massive earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand; and in order to mobilize citizens to cover their communities in metropolises such as Toronto, New York, Paris, London, Sydney and more.
Digital Journal publishes a variety of content ranging from on-the-ground news reports to more general interest stories on topics such as celebrities, business and food. Contributors and readers interact in a one-of-a-kind social news experience that blends news reportage with social communities and groups.
Digital Journal also consults news organizations on how to empower their audience to acquire content, drive revenue and increase engagement from digital media properties. For more information, visit digitaljournal.com
UK newspaper The Telegraph may charge for content in September
Don’t call it a paywall. The Telegraph is planning to roll out a digital content system to charge for some of its content, the Guardian has learned, but the technology won’t act as a full paywall. In the UK, paywalls currently exist on newspaper sites such as News International’s Times, Sunday Times and News of the World.
The Telegraph’s metered plan will launch in September. It will supposedly allow readers to access certain content free, and then ask readers to pay a certain fee if they read more than a designed amount of articles.
The Guardian writes: “The system set to be introduced has been described by one source as ‘very light touch’, with a ‘very generous allowance’ before users would reach the metered limit and be forced to register and pay.”
A source told the Guardian the goal of this initiative is to encourage readers to subscribe to the print edition, which will then give them free access to digital content on the Telegraph website.
Neither confirming nor denying the specific report, a spokesperson from the Telegraph says a payment system is still up in the air: “Absolutely no decisions have been made on the introduction of a paid-content model. Like all publishers, TMG continually evaluates the developments in the digital sector.”
We’ve moved on Twitter
For those of you who follow us daily on Twitter, we wanted to post a quick note to let you know we’ve moved. Thanks to the kind support people at Twitter HQ, we finally get to use the official @futureofmedia account.
If you previously followed us @djfom, please update and follow us @futureofmedia.
Google gets in the subscription game, announces ‘One Pass’ for publishers
By Chris Hogg
In a blog post today, Google announced it is rolling out Google One Pass, a subscription service designed to let publishers set prices to access digital content.
Google One Pass offers publishers a variety of subscription options, including auto-renewing subscriptions, day passes, metered access, pay-per-article or multi-issue packages.
Using a single sign-on, a reader can access content on multiple platforms, including Web and mobile, without having to subscribe to multiple feeds. It’s a “purchase-once, view-anywhere solution,” Google says.
“With Google One Pass, publishers can customize how and when they charge for content while experimenting with different models to see what works best for them — offering subscriptions, metered access, ‘freemium’ content or even single articles for sale from their websites or mobile apps,” writes Lee Shirani, director, business product management, Google Commerce. “The service also lets publishers give existing print subscribers free (or discounted) access to digital content. We take care of the rest, including payments technology handled via Google Checkout.”
The roll-out of Google One Pass comes one day after Apple announced a subscription model for iOS devices. As the Financial Times reports, Google will take a 10 percent cut of any revenue from One Pass, compared to Apple’s 30 percent take on subscriptions sold for iOS devices.
Google’s Eric Schmidt announced Google One Pass at Humboldt University in Berlin today. The company says its goal is to provide an open and flexible platform to support publishers and journalism.
The first partners include German publishers Axel Springer AG, Focus Online (Tomorrow Focus), Stern.de, Media General, NouvelObs, Bonnier’s Popular Science, Prisa and Rust Communications.
Google One Pass is currently available in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. The company plans to expand to other geographies in the coming months.
The Google One Pass FAQ can be found here, and the company posted the following overview video for the product:
Apple officially rolls out App Store subscription service for publishers
By Chris Hogg
Apple confirmed Tuesday a new subscription service is now available to all publishers who have content-based apps on the App Store. The subscription service will allow newspapers, magazines, video and music publishers to charge a recurring fee.
The subscription model was first announced when Apple and News Corp. announced the iPad-only publication called The Daily. Then, Eddy Cue, vice president of Internet Services for Apple, said the subscription service was being launched with The Daily but other publishers would be able to use the feature eventually. Today, Apple confirmed the availability of the subscription service for all publishers. Apple said the service will use the same App Store billing system used for in-app purchases and publishers will be able to set the price and length of subscription.
Subscriptions can be offered on a weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly basis. When users download an app using the new subscription service, they will be prompted to pick the length of subscription and are billed accordingly. Subscriptions can be reviewed an managed from an account page, including the ability to cancel a subscription that is set to auto-renew.
As for revenue-split, Apple says it will process all payments and keep a 30 percent share of revenue, which is the same percentage the company takes for other in-app purchases.
“Our philosophy is simple,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a news release. “When Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing. All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app.”
Apple says publishers can offer subscriptions via their website and choose their own pricing and because Apple does not manage these transactions, the company will not take a revenue share and no customer information is shared with Apple. In this case, Apple says a publisher will need to authenticate a user using their own process.
However, Apple’s publisher guidelines say a publisher who sells a digital subscription outside of an app will have to offer the same subscription at the same price or less within apps. Apple’s terms also say a publisher cannot include links within an app to encourage users to purchase subscriptions outside of the app.
“We believe that this innovative subscription service will provide publishers with a brand new opportunity to expand digital access to their content onto the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone, delighting both new and existing subscribers,” Jobs said.
While Apple’s launch of a subscription model is being widely discussed in media circles for its potential to generate a new revenue stream, it remains to be seen if readers are willing to fork over cash to access content in apps when a lot of content is available freely on the Internet.
“[This year] is the year of media subscriptions,” said Larry Dignan with ZDNet. “The rub is we don’t know whether consumers will go along for the ride. It’s quite possible that 2011 will merely be the year of trying to do media subscriptions.”
Apple says customer privacy will be protected and users will be prompted with an option to share their name, email and zip code with a publisher when they subscribe. When a user shares information, personal info will be governed by a publisher’s privacy policy and not Apple’s, the company says.
Apple has sold more than 15 million iPads the company says iPad customers are huge consumers of news, downloading more than 200 million news apps to date.
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