[ed. I have another theory. Maybe readers are just disgusted wtih all the rewarmed, dumbed down, clickbaiting bullshit articles and ads littering up those sites? You think? For example, I never go to this site or this one anymore because they just assualt my eyes and tax my patience.]
The business of online news has never been forgiving. But in recent weeks, what had been a simmering worry among publishers has turned into borderline panic.
This month, Mashable, a site that had just raised $15 million, laid off 30 people. Salon, a web publishing pioneer, announced a new round of budget cuts and layoffs. And BuzzFeed, which has been held up as a success story, was forced to bat back questions about its revenue — but not before founders at other start-up media companies received calls from anxious investors.
“It is a very dangerous time,” said Om Malik, an investor at True Ventures whose tech news site, Gigaom, collapsed suddenly in 2015, portending the flurry of contractions.
The trouble, the publishers say, is twofold. The web advertising business, always unpredictable, became more treacherous. And website traffic plateaued at many large sites, in some cases falling — a new and troubling experience after a decade of exuberant growth.
Online publishers have faced numerous financial challenges in recent years, including automated advertising and ad-blocking tools. But now, there is a realization that something more profound has happened: The transition from an Internet of websites to an Internet of mobile apps and social platforms, and Facebook in particular, is no longer coming — it is here.
It is a systemic change that is leaving many publishers unsure of how they will make money.
“With each turn of the screw, people began to realize, viscerally, that this is what it feels like to not be in control of your destiny,” said Scott Rosenberg, a co-founder of Salon who left the company in 2007.
Audiences drove the change, preferring to refresh their social feeds and apps instead of visiting website home pages. As social networks grew, visits to websites in some ways became unnecessary detours, leading to the weakened traffic numbers for news sites. Sales staffs at media companies struggled to explain to clients why they should buy ads for a fragmented audience rather than go to robust social networks instead.
Advertisers adjusted spending accordingly. In the first quarter of 2016, 85 cents of every new dollar spent in online advertising will go to Google or Facebook, said Brian Nowak, a Morgan Stanley analyst.
The power shift was made clear last week as the Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg took the stage for the company’s annual developer conference. He stood in front of a diagram outlining an audacious 10-year expansion plan, which included several features to help keep people inside Facebook’s world instead of following links out.
The business of online news has never been forgiving. But in recent weeks, what had been a simmering worry among publishers has turned into borderline panic.
This month, Mashable, a site that had just raised $15 million, laid off 30 people. Salon, a web publishing pioneer, announced a new round of budget cuts and layoffs. And BuzzFeed, which has been held up as a success story, was forced to bat back questions about its revenue — but not before founders at other start-up media companies received calls from anxious investors.“It is a very dangerous time,” said Om Malik, an investor at True Ventures whose tech news site, Gigaom, collapsed suddenly in 2015, portending the flurry of contractions.
The trouble, the publishers say, is twofold. The web advertising business, always unpredictable, became more treacherous. And website traffic plateaued at many large sites, in some cases falling — a new and troubling experience after a decade of exuberant growth.
Online publishers have faced numerous financial challenges in recent years, including automated advertising and ad-blocking tools. But now, there is a realization that something more profound has happened: The transition from an Internet of websites to an Internet of mobile apps and social platforms, and Facebook in particular, is no longer coming — it is here.
It is a systemic change that is leaving many publishers unsure of how they will make money.
“With each turn of the screw, people began to realize, viscerally, that this is what it feels like to not be in control of your destiny,” said Scott Rosenberg, a co-founder of Salon who left the company in 2007.
Audiences drove the change, preferring to refresh their social feeds and apps instead of visiting website home pages. As social networks grew, visits to websites in some ways became unnecessary detours, leading to the weakened traffic numbers for news sites. Sales staffs at media companies struggled to explain to clients why they should buy ads for a fragmented audience rather than go to robust social networks instead.
Advertisers adjusted spending accordingly. In the first quarter of 2016, 85 cents of every new dollar spent in online advertising will go to Google or Facebook, said Brian Nowak, a Morgan Stanley analyst.
The power shift was made clear last week as the Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg took the stage for the company’s annual developer conference. He stood in front of a diagram outlining an audacious 10-year expansion plan, which included several features to help keep people inside Facebook’s world instead of following links out.
by John Herrman, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Chang W. Lee
