Category Archives: digital media

April 20, 2016 · 11:03 am

Bad Code And Bad Business Thinking

The digital world continues to be abuzz about ad blocking. Many in the digital ad space have expressed everything from frustration to outrage, calling those who use blockers everything from misguided to thieves. They don’t, however, seem to acknowledge the root of the problem: bad code and bad business thinking. Now that mobile ad blocking is on the rise, they are turning up the rhetoric but let’s take a quick look at the problem.

It comes as no shock to anyone who has a mobile device that there are no unlimited data plans anymore. Every byte is counted against a cap, and in a world where images and videos are becoming the currency, those bytes add up pretty quickly. In essence, every screen, whether on a computer or a mobile device has a cost to the user, so it’s in the user’s best interest to be as efficient as possible when loading those pages or screens. More data also means shorter battery life since the device has to work to load and render. With me so far?

Now let’s revisit an analysis done by The NY Times last October. They spent a few days on some prominent sites measuring how much the ad blockers cut down on web page data sizes and improved loading times, and also how much they increased a smartphone’s battery life. The results?

The benefits of ad blockers stood out the most when loading theBoston.com website. With ads, that home page on average measured 19.4 megabytes; with ads removed using Crystal or Purify, it measured four megabytes, and with 1Blocker, it measured 4.5 megabytes. On a 4G network, this translated to the page taking 39 seconds to load with ads and eight seconds to load without ads.

In another example, the home page of The Los Angeles Times measured 5.7 megabytes with ads. After shedding ads, that dropped to 1.6 megabytes with Crystal and 1.9 megabytes with Purify and 1Blocker. On a 4G network, the page took 11 seconds to load with ads and four seconds to load without ads.

I’d encourage you to look at the interactive graphic associated with the article. The cost to the consumer can be anywhere from 2x to 4x when not using a blocker of some sort, and load times are much less when using one as the examples, above, show.

I get the problems these blockers cause, but maybe the bad code and bad business thinking that forces the bad code (lots of external calls for ad serving, user tracking, etc.) need rethinking instead of a lot of whining? What do you think?

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April 19, 2016 · 9:52 am

In Control

One of the interesting parts of The New York Times’ editorial makeup is the public editor. In addition to writing a few times a month, the public editor‘s role is to “handle questions and comments from readers and investigates matters of journalistic integrity. The public editor works independently, outside of the reporting and editing structure of the newspaper; her opinions are her own.” Margaret Sullivan is leaving that role and penned her last column over the weekend. In it she cautioned the following:

The New York Times logo

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The old business model, based on print advertising and print subscriptions, is broken. A new one — based on digital subscriptions, new advertising forms, and partnerships with other businesses and media platforms — is in the works. There are hopeful signs, high ambitions and lofty plans, but certainly no guarantee of success.

I think we all recognize that. It’s interesting that the Times seems have reinvented itself as a digital media company that publishes a newspaper. That paradigm change affects everything – how content is created, the speed with which it’s made available, and most importantly, the business model. The Times isn’t the only organization to have done this. Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM), for example, has always seemed to think of itself as a digital services company that has Major League Baseball as its primary client, and not just as Baseball’s digital arm. Having run a similar organization for a league, I can tell you that the differences in how business is done based on that thinking are stark. Perhaps it’s time you stepped back and had another think about your paradigm?

Ms. Sullivan also struck a cautionary note:

As partnerships, especially with Facebook, the social media behemoth, become nearly impossible to resist, The Times shouldn’t let business-driven approaches determine what readers get to see. In dealing with Facebook and other platforms and potential partners whose businesses revolve around algorithms, it’s critical that the paper makes sure the news that readers see is driven by the judgment of editors concerned about journalism, not business-driven formulas that may only reinforce prejudices.

In other words, be who you are and service your readers.  Don’t let others control you and broaden your thinking about the best way to solve your customers’ problems. I think that’s a good mantra for any business.  You?

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March 28, 2016 · 10:53 am

Home Base

I had a potential client ask me if having a website was still a big deal or if it was a good strategy to use the plethora of platforms to engage with consumers. I have a strong feeling about that, and it’s that digital homelessness is a really bad idea. Let me explain why.

I’ll deal with facts before I get into my opinion (as I’ve encouraged you folks to do many times here on the screed). Let me quote from a Digiday article of last November:

Referral traffic (desktop + mobile) to the top 30 Facebook publishers…plunged 32 percent from January to October, according to SimpleReach, a distribution analytics company. The more reliant the publisher on Facebook, the bigger the hit: Among the top 10, the drop was a steeper 42.7 percent.

Those results line up with those from social traffic tracker SimilarWeb. It found that The Huffington Post’s Facebook traffic fell 60.1 percent, Fox News’ dropped 48.2 percent, and BuzzFeed’s Facebook visits fell 40.8 percent. Across all 50, the biggest drop in traffic in the period took place from January to February, when publishers’ Facebook traffic fell an average of 75 percent. There was a smaller but also significant drop from March to April.

Maybe it was an algorithm shift, maybe it was that the publishers weren’t offering content that was click-worthy.  That proves my point – you can’t know.  If it was the former, you’re at the mercy of a gatekeeper.  I’m not singling out Facebook – Instagram just went to an algorithmically determined feed, as has Twitter.  The point is that without a home base you are at their mercy.  Why?  Because you can’t market for yourself.  “Like Us On Facebook” does a world of good for Facebook and little for you, in my opinion, because while a consumer might like you, they might never see you.

Yes, you can buy ads on any of the aforementioned platforms to drive traffic.  Is that any different from buying search ads?  I think it is.  Search is targeted differently and can be better integrate with site analytics than can any outside platforms.  Putting that aside, with so much in our business lives out of our control, why would we give up anything that can be completely ours?  Having a well-designed and maintained website – a home base on the web – is one of those things.  That’s how I see it.  You?

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