Grindr, the Tinder for queer men, is working on breaking away from being just another hook-up app. While the app boasts the most engagement of any dating apps (its three-million-plus active users are on the app an average of 54 minutes a day), the company wants to do more. It wants to become a lifestyle brand. On Monday it launched online magazine Into -- a place for LGBT+ writers, photographers, and creators to celebrate and represent their world. In an interview with Forbes, CEO Joel Simkhai and Creative Director Landis Smithers said that the app's users see it as far more than just a way to find...
Think about the great innovators for a moment. They're different. Whatever field they're in, they don't just look at the world, they see it. Great innovators are constantly trying to fix things, even if they have to break them first. They're the kid who tears apart his remote control car in a bid to try to make it go faster, all grown up. Om Malik from GigaOm writes: The present isn't as interesting to most of us who live here, mostly because that would mean accepting the status quo. Instead, guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey want...
The word on the street is that Apple is about to relax its iPad subscription rules, a move likely to be welcomed by newspapers and magazine publishers. MacRumors, a site much trusted by insiders, says Apple will no longer require publishers to offer subscriptions through its app store at the same price or less than offered elsewhere. Apple currently takes a 30 percent cut of subscriptions bought through its app store. Some publishers, including members of INMA, the international news industry association, have been critical of the size of the cut. They expressed their displeasure about some of the guidelines laid...
On Monday The New York Times rolled out its paywall system which means readers will now begin paying for full access to the site. The site also dangled a heavily discounted introductory offer intended to lure its first digital subscribers. The newspaper is offering three digital subscription packages, including an all-access option, so you can choose a plan that is right for you based on which device you use to access the site -- computer, smartphone or tablet. For now however the site is offering its three digital subscription plans for the same price of US$0.99 for the first four weeks. The...
A recent story in AdAge, entitled "The 'Craigslist Effect’ Spreads to Content as Free Work Fills Supply”, is getting quite a lot of attention. If you’re pathologically allergic to reading any more of these “OMFG! New Media is SOOOOO going to kick Traditional Media’s ASS because now we can totally CROWDSOURCE everything from awesome writers who do it for the LOVE of it” stories, stop reading now and head over to cracked.com for something worthwhile. If you hate these kind of stories so much that you want to wallow in some New Media Hating, read on. In fact, read on anyway;...
Did you know that the first printed books in England would leave a blank rectangle at the beginning of a chapter so that an illuminated capital letter could be written in? It's a great example of a hybrid publishing system, and we can see the same, although in different forms, as publishers transition to an online model. This example, and other aspects of publishing's evolution over millennia, can be found in an excellent article based on a presentation by Guardian.co.uk Information Architect Martin Beam: Journalism in the digital age: trends, tools and technologies: "But really it has been the development of the World...
One of the great joys of my annual trip to London as a judge of the CNN Multichoice African Journalist of the year awards, is to catch up on journalism in a capital where it is practiced in its finest form, and to be privileged enough to read the cream of the work from our entire continent. London is the ground zero of newspapers -- emphasised by the acres of space given to the coverage of the broadband revolution and what it means for the press, and therefore democracy. I realised this one night while eating at a Thai...
The web has never really been a good fit for the glossies. Their luxurious, ample layouts have not really translated effectively to the web. Advances in web technology and connectivity have resulted in a more multimedia-friendly web - we’re in the broadband era, Flash is on its 10th version, and YouTube is the world’s 3rd biggest site. Yet magazines just aren’t nearly as prominent as their online newspaper counterparts. We can guess why. Maybe it’s because the web started out predominantly as a text-based platform and, like it or not, that legacy shapes today’s paradigm? Perhaps it’s because the web...
One of the key viral elements of content websites, such as news sites, are the "email to a friend" links you see on many articles. Personally, I don't use these, but I know they're valuable: there's a type of user that religiously use these links as a way of sharing. Obviously they introduce new traffic and users to a site, so they're a key growth element. But they're also an outdated viral element....
We may be in the throes of a global financial crisis, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see innovation on the web. In fact, leading trend analysis blog Read Write Web reminds us of the old cliché that “tech innovation thrives in times of recession”. Tight economic conditions incubate intense creative and lateral thought, because a person’s very survival is at stake. And the stakes are high. There just isn’t money to throw...
When it comes to news about internet startups, web trends and innovations, blogs are a way better source than traditional media. If you want to know what’s happening on the web, there are some key blogs that should form part of your daily reading. Most serious online fundis use at least 2 or 3 of the blogs below on a regular basis. They are a great indication of online trends and...
The Online Publishers Association (OPA) has launched a new online award called The Bookmarks. It's a local online award that recognises the best in creative digital media. These awards have been on the cards for a while now at the OPA (in fact three years!), so well done for getting the initiative launched! The awards also aim to educate and encourage South African agencies, designers and clients around the benefits and possibilities inherent...
Did this interview Gareth Richards from Mags Magazine on online media... 1 Can you give me your views on how important your online presence is to the newspaper? Has it grown more quickly/slowly than the paper version? At the Mail & Guardian we are in the fortunate position where both our newspaper and website are showing record readership. It may have something to do with the fact that the newspaper is a weekend weekly,...
Vodacom, best known as a cellphone service provider, is set to become one of the country’s most influential media players, trumping many big, traditional media players. The numbers are certainly impressive. Some would say Vodacom is already an influential media player, with a claimed monthly audience of 1,4-million unique users and 16-million page impressions that consume its content on the small screen. These numbers put the company in the same league as some...
At the Digital Citizen's Indaba, I presented on the business issues of online media and the blogosphere, from my own experiences as a blogger and working as a media professional at the M&G Online. Banner ads in online media are still relatively unsophisticated. The problem is that most online advertising models on media still resemble traditional media advertising models. For example, the advertising model in newspapers has merely been transplanted to the web,...
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