Member Article

ONA London: Lessons to take away

The opening remarks left me with a poignant point that made me very glad I work in new media!

“All news will be online and all news will be mobile.“

If this statement is a true prediction then what are the problems we have to consider in the media industry?

Responsive website vs. App

What works best? A specialised app or a mobile responsive website? Do you need both? The answer is a difficult one. While mobile apps are costly to develop they are used by more loyal consumers of news. However unless you are one of the larger news agencies then you are unlikely to be on the homescreen of a phone. Only 5 - 6 apps are used on a daily basis, getting into that top list is difficult and requires a large marketing budget. Mobile responsive sites seem to be the way to go for a smaller news agency.

32% of time spent on a mobile is spent on games with 17% spent on facebook. 14% of a user’s time is spent on mobile sites and Twitter by comparison only gets 1.5% of a user’s time.

It should also be noted that only 16% of news that is pushed on facebook gets to the end user. Facebook is a selective gatekeeper.

Content

Is mobile content different to desktop content? Should it be? Should all mobile content be short, sharp and snappy? One point raised is that people do read longer content on their mobile, for example books on a commute can be read via mobile. However as a general rule the majority of mobile users should have shorter pieces of information that load quickly and are easy to navigate.

It was also suggested that stories need to be thought of in mobile form from the very commissioning of a story. The thought of how it will look on a mobile needs to be a primary consideration. How a headline looks on a mobile needs to be considered, to how images load and how long a story is.

Timing

Mobile and Desktop users check the news at different times in different places. Mobile users are often on the move, the mobile is the first thing you reach for in the morning before your feet even touch the ground and so there should be mobile friendly news there to greet the user first thing in the morning.

Desktop users have given you their full attention - longer pieces with more images are ideal for them.

Mobile users are asking you to compete with other apps, notifications and the outside world as they travel. You have to work harder to engage a user and make it easier for a user to share content quickly.

Revenue

50% of news is consumed via mobile yet only 10% of revenue comes from mobile used news. This is a real ticking time bomb and presents a need for a solution on how to fix this. News agencies need to think how to get revenue out of mobile news without risking the use of mobile ad-blockers if users feel too spammed by adverts. Everyone is struggling and no one has thought of a solution yet. The economist charge a subscription fee via their app and website. People now spend more time on their mobile than watching TV yet the revenue from mobile is only 23% across the whole of mobile usage not just the news.

So much time is spent on mobile that there needs to be time spent reviewing how to monetize mobile news.

Competition

Linkedin is up and coming and will become a competitor. They have just hired an experienced news editor and will seriously compete with business news.

In the world of apps there is fierce competition so unless you have a seriously large budget for marketing it is not necessarily a worthy use of resource.

Conclusion

There were lots of things to take away from a very informative day.

Mobile news is the future and we need to adapt and keep up with the changes in news consumption.

“All news will be online and all news will be mobile.“

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophia Taha .