Today we finally learn why there isn’t (and probably never will be) a Facebook “dislike” button, and you can probably guess the reason. Also, some worthwhile insight about Facebook’s and Google’s monopoly on referral traffic.
How Facebook and Google Now Dominate Media Distribution (Monday Note)
Many great news brands today see their direct traffic — that is readers accessing deliberately the URL of the site — fall well below 50%.
According to last Summer ComScore data, a typical BuzzFeed viewer reads on average 2.3 articles and spends slightly more than 3 minutes per visit. And when she leaves BuzzFeed, she goes back to the social nest (or to Google-controlled sites) roughly in the same proportion. As for direct access, it amounts to only 6% and Twitter’s traffic is almost no existent (less than 1%).
Whether it is 75% of traffic coming from social for BuzzFeed or 30% to 40% for Mashable or others of the same kind, the growing reliance to social and search raises several questions.
Roughly speaking, for a news, value-added type media, the number of page views by source goes like this:
Direct Access : 5 to 6 page views
Google Search: 2 to 3
Emailing: ~2
Google News: ~1
Social: ~1
These figures show how good you have to be in collecting readers from social sources to generate the same advertising ARPU as from a loyal reader coming to your brand because she likes it. Actually, you have to be at least six times better.
Chartbeat tries to fight the smoke and mirrors in web measurement by going public with its metrics (Gigaom)
In an attempt to force a change to that state of affairs, Chartbeat announced on Monday that it is making public all of the metrics, standards and methods of measurement it uses internally — including a detailed breakdown of their weaknesses and limitations.
An Audience of Users (Medium)
We must learn what customers really want, not what they say they want, or what we think they should want.
In my view, most brands and media organizations face three main hurdles:
-Insights into who their users are, how they are consuming content, and why they are engaging
-Time to build relationships across multiple channels with multiple user groups with differing needs
-Understanding of the problem as a “how” question rather than a “who/what” question
It’s about thinking more expansively about the definitions of “audience” and “user,” and finding ways to meet their needs, regardless of where they are on that journey.
New Facebook Tool Lets Marketers Host Real-Time Chats With Celebs (AdWeek)
8 tips from Metro for producing a mobile news app (Journalism UK)
1 Identify your objectives
2 Consider using an ‘off-the-shelf’ app supplier
3 Test before you launch
4 Apple is crucial
5 Think beyond the original source material
6 Keeping your customers happy
7 Expect to work unusual hours
8 The future is unwritten
YouTube Content Creator Channels Help Marketers Get in on the Right Action (eMarketer)
Washington Post Adds a National Tabloid Edition (N.Y. Times)
Local newspapers across the nation can now deliver with their Sunday papers a 24-page color tabloid edition of The Post. A news release said The Post’s insert would include news, including “coverage of politics, policy, national and world events, lifestyle, and the arts along with a wide range of commentary.”
The Dallas Morning News was the first paper to deliver the new edition starting on Sunday.
Here’s Why Facebook Never Created a ‘Dislike’ Button (AdWeek)
“I have the feeling that if there were to be a ‘Dislike’ button is that you would end up with these really negative social aspects to it,” Facebook CTO Bret Taylor says. “If you want to dislike something, you should probably write a comment, because there’s probably a word for what you want to say.”
This is the most important person at Gawker you’ve never heard of (Digiday)
Vice News announces Australian expansion (mUmBRELLA)
Vice’s push into Australia follows hot on the heels of a plethora of other international media organisations including: The Guardian, Buzzfeed, the Daily Mail, Huffington Post and BBC.
16 Months After Acquisition, Yahoo Hasn’t Made Tumblr Uncool (AdWeek)
True to her word, Mayer has let this place alone.
“It’s a very healthy working relationship where we are still able to maintain our independence but also have a lot of great access to the technology and financial resources they have to help us grow our business faster,” said Lee Brown, Tumblr’s global head of brand partnerships.
Foursquare rolls out first ad campaign (Digiday)
The six-week campaign will appear at bus stops, train stations and phone kiosks in Chicago and New York, and at bike share stations in Chicago. It is the company’s first advertising campaign and an attempt to simultaneously rebrand Foursquare and jumpstart stagnant user growth. The campaign’s aspirations are to educate non-users that Foursquare is a personalized local search app and no longer “that check-in company.”
The Daily Scroll is a roundup of my favorite media reads Monday through Thursday.
Social Meditation 