Whether it’s the dormant corporate blogs, the desolate Facebook/Tumblr/Pinterest pages or the media start-ups that kick off with a hiss and a roar, are temporarily fuelled by enthusiasm but end up falling over, the internet is littered with good intentions. But Duncan Greive, founder and editor of TV-obsessed website thespinoff.co.nz and Barkers’ magazine 1972—is confident he’s found a model that works. And it’s all based around content marketing.
We live in sad times. And they just got sadder, because artists Aric Snee & Justin Crowe have released an amazing new narcissistic development, the selfie-arm, ‘a sarcastic solution to the problem of being alone.’ PLUS: the wonders of solo chatting.
The freelancer experience has until now been typified by making contacts and hoping that they require your services on a regular basis. And while this approach has seen freelancers make ends meet for generations, it isn’t best case scenario for any of the parties involved. Freelancers are often left without work for long stints while agencies and clients might only have a limited list of potential workers, who might not always be available. So, in a bid to make freelancing in the local market more accessible and practicable, Greig Cranfield, who has until now served as digital specialist recruiter at Razzbri, launched Yudoozy, an online recruitment service that links freelancers to clients.
Last month, Fairfax announced some more changes to the structure of its newsroom, with a big focus on becoming a digital first media company. And Nielsen numbers show its hub stuff.co.nz continues to move up the top ten most popular site rankings while the majority have gone down year on year. But is this digital growth translating to dollars?
Rarely do the players in the TV market set aside their fierce competition and come together in support of a common cause. However, the emergence of global mode options on internet service providers Slingshot, Orcon and other companies has risen sufficient concern for MediaWorks, Sky, TVNZ and Spark (the owner of Lightbox) unify. A joint statement by the quartet of companies today stated that they are “taking action against internet and technology companies who sell and promote services that enable access to international geo-blocked TV and movie services.”
Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
As part of a review of its local business, Yahoo is set to let all its editorial staff go. This comes as a difficult time for the company, which was last year overtaken by Stuff in terms of online ratings.
Often when we visit or move to a new city and are ready to explore what it has to offer, we can be overwhelmed with choice. Where are the decent cheap eateries? Which art galleries will I like? Which music venues suit my tastes? There are plenty of media outlets devoted to informing us where the best bits are, but one of the more interesting—and increasingly popular—options is Concrete Playground, an online guide to culture in Auckland, Wellington and Australia.
We live in social times. And it’s easier than ever to share information with fellow humans. It’s also easier than ever to get stuck in a Google/Wikipedia/YouTube/hyperlink rabbit hole and end up with 42 tabs open on your browser. So Kiwi start-up Twingl is trying to make it easier to share knowledge—and to see the journey people take to get there—with a clever Chrome extension called Trailblazer.
Kiwis are now choosing to pay to stream TV and videos instead of turning to BitTorent for pirated content and online shoppers are looking to China for their precious goods, according to recent data-gathering by Slingshot.
There are plenty of examples of brands being integrated into TV shows these days. And plenty of examples of fun being poked at the ad industry. But Wellington-based video strategy and production company Stem Creative is aiming to combine those two things in a new satirical web series called Agency that follows three “hapless but genuine and enthusiastic” employees at a small creative marketing agency in Wellington and, as Stem founder and director Ben Forman says, “pulls the veil off the ad industry”.
Around five years ago, the NBR started charging for its online subscriptions, with its corporate IP subscription offer arriving on the scene around a year ago. Publisher Todd Scott says it’s now bringing in $1 million in digital subs revenue and it will be hoping for more after launching its redesigned website and a mobile-only offer over the weekend and also announcing plans to establish an NBR radio service.
Although it doesn’t come as much of a surprise, an independent survey commissioned by Reachmedia has found that Kiwis are becoming skilled at avoiding advertising in new forms of media and are utilising technology to assist them. StopPress takes a look at what the results of the survey say.
References to the rapid growth of online and mobile ad spend in the industry have been so ubiquitous in recent months that they’ve become something of a media cliché. And with this growth in revenue has come an inevitable attempt on the part of online media owners to get a piece of this burgeoning pie. And nowhere is this more evident than in the online radio market, which, despite its relative infancy in the local market, is starting to catch the attention of Kiwi advertisers due to its resonance with the mobile-hungry youth market. So, given that there have been some interesting moves made by the major players, StopPress decided to take a look at what they’re doing to get in on the action.
Following on from last week’s announcement that Yahoo had updated its website with features that allow for greater personalisation, MSN has now similarly given its homepage a facelift. And althought the website has not yet been officially released, Kiwis can catch a glimpse of the changes by visiting the preview site. StopPress takes a look at what the update will offer users and advertisers in the near future.
One fact that has stuck with me over the years—and flashes up in front of me occasionally when I’m deep in a time-sucking online/social media rabbit hole—is that the same part of the brain that responds so favourably to pokie machines is the same part of the brain that responds so favourably to the constant arrival of notifications on your phone, in your inbox or on social networks. So, like digital meerkats, many of us are constantly popping our heads up and looking for the next information fix. And, as a recent Victoria University study has shown, the online realm is having an impact on our reading behaviour.
Earlier in July, Kiwi start-up Postr launched with the promise that it would pay users to host advertising on their smartphones. And while this could prove a novel way to encourage mobile users to voluntarily accept advertising as part of the experience, the premise has already been taken a step further by an app called Quack.
In the traditional media channels, advertising couldn’t be avoided. When viewers listened to a radio broadcast or watched a television show, ads were an inevitable part of the experience and often provided a momentary break to run to the bathroom or make a cup tea. But with the growing tendency of online viewing, this coerced ad-watching is no longer a given. Simple software downloads, such as AdBlock, now give viewers direct access to the content that they want to watch. So what are media owners doing to protect their advertising?
This morning, yet another bombshell hit the SVOD space with the announcement that Slingshot had introduced its global mode, which will give Kiwi subscribers access to services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer. This announcement comes only a week after Telecom launched its SVOD service called Lightbox and two weeks after Sky sent out a release saying that it was planning to launch a similar service in the near future.
Last week, iHeartRadio broke the 200,000-subscriber threshold and this certainly isn’t bad going given that it was only launched in August 2013. Since hitting the Kiwi market, the online radio platform has been used to stream over 10 million hours of content, and it has proved particularly popular among young listeners, with 38 percent of the audience aged under 25. Given the success of the online listening platform, we decided it was time to pick the brain of Mike Lane, TRN’s head of branding engagement.
Nielsen’s latest online retail report has found the number of people shopping online increased by over 100,000 in the last year, which equates to growth of six percent. That means there are now 1.9 million New Zealanders shopping online, or 56 percent of the total online population. Plus: what BNZ’s online retail figures show.
Interactive and mobile advertising spend continued its upward trajectory by growing 22 percent from last year, according to IAB’s Q1 results. Although the organisation didn’t release a full report for this quarter, outgoing chief executive Alisa Higgins says that the total interactive and mobile spend was $120.2 million, up from last year’s $99.2 million.
Whether it’s online, in the skies, on TV or in real life, quizzes are universally popular. And travel company Adventure World has tapped into that interest with its biggest ever online campaign, Extraordinary World Trivia.
What many traditional retailers fail to see is that the only thing standing between them and getting the upper hand on their virtual online counterparts is technology, and embracing what it can add to a customer’s total retail experience, writes Vaughan Reed.
Only a few hours after stepping off a plane at Auckland Airport on 7 April, Pandora founder Tim Westergren sat down with us for a quick chat at the Generator, the New Zealand headquarters of the company. Although Westergren’s arrival in the country came as part of a promotional push to officially introduce the music-streaming platform to the New Zealand market after its release late last year, Pandora is by no means new to the Kiwi market. PLUS: a look at how Pandora’s offering compares to Spotify and iHeartRadio.
Jasmax had about 10 target audiences to cater for with its website overhaul, handled by creative partner BKA. The companies replaced the previous Flash-based site with a magazine style to make information more accessible and flexible.
Touchcast has developed a new site for Forest and Bird to tell a new audience about the organisation’s mission and supporters the chance to donate. Inournature.org.nz also helps people spread the word via social sharing.
Little Giant has produced a new website for family-run wholesaler and distributor Marlborough Wines. The image-rich site has a CMS that allows staff to add new wines, brands and staff details.
Trade Me is touting the transformation of its clothing category into a more fully fledged e-commerce experience as an opportunity for Kiwi retailers to go omni-channel. The company began the process of transformation late last year to allow greater customisation and recommendation and to target big labels users couldn’t find on the site.
APN has replaced the Foodhub online brand with Bite, bringing the print liftout into alignment with the online presence. It’s also been working behind the scenes to make its recipe collections more searchable.