The long quest for news discovery apps that don’t suck

By

Artifact, the news discovery app launched a year ago by the founders of Instagram, has just announced it is shutting down, saying “the market opportunity isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment in this way.”

As pointed out in TechCrunch, Artifact “hadn’t quite defined what it wanted to be”, iterating from its initial personalized news discovery platform to include conversations about news articles and the essence of a social network. 

Given my lifelong focus on information discovery I was excited by the launch of Artifact and was an early user. I found it somewhat useful in surfacing interesting articles, but not significantly better than other similar apps. 

News discovery still sucks

Having closely followed the information discovery space for over two decades, I continue to be amazed at how poor our tools are.

In my recent book Thriving on Overload I wrote: 

Read more →

Massive falls in marketing and advertising – how and when will the market come back?

By

The evidence is now in on what was already clear: the advertising and marketing industries are getting slammed by the coronavirus pandemic. However there are ways that the industry, particularly from an advertiser perspective, could reinvent itself.
Read more →

Will newspapers still exist in Australia in 2022? This morning their demise may have been accelerated

By

While I don’t believe in predictions, I am in some quarters best-known for one of the only clear-cut predictions I have made, on the global timing of the extinction (or more precisely pending insignificance) of news-on-paper.

This morning’s news that the broadcaster Nine is “merging with” (essentially taking over) news publisher Fairfax to create Australia’s largest media company has sparked heated discussion on the future of the Australian media landscape.
Read more →

About getting predictions wrong as a futurist (and how to create the future you want)

By

Over the years I have created a lot of content – books, reports, visual frameworks and far more – that has been very widely seen. From all this undoubtedly the one piece that has been the most visible globally is my Newspaper Extinction Timeline launched in October 2010, that predicted for each country in which year newspapers in their then-current form would become “insignificant”.

Newspaper_Timeline_front.gif
Coverage in over 100 major publications from more than 30 countries helped to garner many, many millions of views, attract critics galore, and generate substantial debate.
Read more →

Creating the future of media: 6 ways for media organizations to adapt, thrive, and maximize value

By

One of the most striking trends in 21st century innovation is the significant potential for media to create value on a global scale. Media, in all its forms, is fuelling economic growth, structural change and technological advances like never before. As society debates the role and influence of media in a “post-truth” world, it is increasingly apparent that the future of media is crucial to shaping the future of humanity.

Leading futurist Ross Dawson shared useful insights on how to create a vibrant future for media organizations in his keynote at the #SchibstedNext 2016 event in Olso, Norway held by Schibsted Media Group. You can see the video of the full keynote below.
Read more →

Platforms are the future of media: implications for news, journalists and society

By

I was recently interviewed by Nikolay Malyarov of digital newspaper aggregator PressReader for their industry magazine The Insider.

The transcribed interview appears as an extended article Platforms are the Future of Media, which goes into depth on some of the issues I see in the future of media. Below are a few brief excerpts, but read the full article for more detail.
Read more →

Launch of Creating the Future of PR – shaping an exceptional future for the industry

By

Advanced Human Technologies Group has just launched Creating the Future of PR, a publication that looks at how the Public Relations industry can create an exceptional future for itself and its clients in a fast-changing world.
CFoPRfront_500
In my article Join Us in Creating the Future of PR I frame the context for the launch of the publication:

The fundamental capabilities of PR professionals are more relevant than ever in our intensely networked world. Arguably, PR should be at the center of the marketing universe, since it is better able than any other discipline to deal with a world driven by relationships, fueled by connectivity, social, mobile, and power shifting to the individual.

The big question is: will the PR industry seize the immense opportunity before it?

Read more →

How to create an extraordinarily successful future for the news industry

By

I recently did the opening keynote on Creating the Future of News at the International News & Media Association World Congress in New York, which brought together over 400 senior news executives from 45 countries.

Below is a video excerpt of the opening minutes of my keynote.

You can see a video of the complete keynote here, and the static presentation slides here (though much of my visual presentation was video).
Read more →

A taxonomy of branded content and its role in the future of media

By

Immediately after my opening keynote on Creating the Future of News at INMA World Congress in New York last week was a very interesting plenary session from Neil Zuckerman of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on branded content in the future of media, drawing on a recent multi-country study they have done. I had already emphasized the importance of branded content in my keynote, so it was a great segue into his detailed analysis.

Zuckerman began by running through the severe challenges for the news industry, going on to highlight branded content as the next source of growth for the industry. Below are a few slides from his excellent presenatation.

BCG sees branded content growing at a 21% rate over the next 5 years. I believe it is likely to grow faster than this.
Branded_content_BCG_1_500Source: Boston Consulting Group
Read more →

Applying platform strategy to Facebook Instant Articles

By

Probably the most reported aspect of my opening keynote at INMA World Congress in New York last week on Creating the Future of News was my response to an audience question about how publishers should think about Facebook’s new offer to publishers to host their articles for mobile viewing.

An article in Sydney Morning Herald today titled Beware Facebook creep, publishers warned opened by describing the new Facebook Instant Articles and went on to quote me:
Read more →