NY Times released on IFTTT channel

NY Times is the most recent media company to partner with IFTTT, a start-up service that connects websites to social media networks. Users of the website can now set ‘six triggers’, which relates to the content on the news site, TheGuardian reports.

By connecting the Times to other social media platforms such as Evernote, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, and Google Calendar, users can now auto share and auto save articles published on the Times as well as set up SMS and e-mail alerts. The six various triggers that the channel can perform include a trigger notifying users when a new article is published within the specific section a user specifies.  This function can also be linked to their Twitter account so that the article is auto-tweeted or automatically saved to read later, Journalism.co.uk reports.

This service helps users “automate their online life,” according to a post on the Times Blog. The most exciting part is that the entire service is publicly available through APIs.

Additionally, a trigger fires every time a ‘new article from search’ is published that matches an exact search query stipulated by the user. The ‘new event in category’ fires every time an event is listed in a category specified by the user, but this is now limited to the New York area only, TheNextWeb.com reports.

By: Savita V Jayaram

WSJ shrinks the ‘What’s News’ feature section

The ‘What’s News’ section has been the Wall Street Journal’s A1 staple for years. This section packs snippets together from the day’s articles along with items not found in the paper. The content was segregated into three sections: Business, Finance, and Worldwide. However, now only the Business and Finance sub sections remain, MediaBistro reports.

In a memo by Gerard Baker, the Journal’s Managing Editor, he stated that slimming down this section will allow for more A1 items regarding Business and Finance to make the front page. Baker went on to say that, “The case for two full columns of news digest items has diminished, and some of the items in the ‘What’s News’ column have become repetitive, even otiose.” Hence, this change will “enable us to get more original reporting and news from the front page – including no-jump stories as brevity sometimes demands – more enterprise reporting, more creative and appealing use of news photography, graphics, and other visual devices.”

The move to diminish the column’s size is aimed at removing the ‘Daily Vital Signs of the Economy’ graphic from the foot of the columns, Monday’s ‘What’s Ahead’ columns as well as making individual digest stories more concise. The daily news hopes to make room for as many ‘What’s News’ items as they had in the last few years.

The ‘What’s News’ section will now run as a single column and thus additional space available on the rest of the page will offer more flexibility for bigger stories of the day, according to a report by CapitalNewYork.com. This will further enable the front page of the WSJ to include more of their original reporting and more news, including no-jump stories as brevity sometimes demands, more enterprise reporting, more creative and appealing use of news photography, graphics, and other visual devices.

By: Savita V Jayaram

South-African newspapers battle circulation drop

According to figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) from the second quarter of 2013, the South-African newspapers recorded an overall average circulation decline of 3.2 percent from 3.8-million physical copies in the first three months of 2013 to 3.68-million copies between April and June, according to a report by BDLive.co.za.

Out of 20 newspapers, only The Sowetan and The Times showed both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year improvements, although marginal. While The Herald increased 0.6 percent year on year, it had a sharp quarter-on-quarter decline of 4.8 percent. The Cape Argus was up 0.2 percent on the quarter, but fell 5.8 percent on the year.

According to The Sowetan editor Mpumelelo Mkhabela, the current circulation of 99,517 cannot be compared with the previous peak, more than 200,000 copies in the mid-1990s. With widespread digital access of news media today, the global newspaper industry is under pressure and it is imperative that publishers get more innovative, BDLive reports.

South Africa’s print media industry is somewhat sheltered from the global drop in newspaper circulation as broadband access is still underdeveloped. Print media still enjoys about 19.3 percent of the R34.4bn of advertising money spent in the country.


By: Savita V Jayaram

The hottest-selling newspaper in Spanish-speaking world

A tabloid called Trome, with attention-getter headlines on the cover and enter-to-win prizes inside sells nearly 700,000 copies daily, according to a blog post on SmartPlanet.com. These sales are more than any of the papers sold by Trome’s parent, Grupo El Comercio, including the company’s flagship daily of the same name. The sales are also higher than Argentina’s top-selling Clarin, Mexico’s popular La Prensa, and significantly higher than Spain’s El País.

While the newspaper industry is battling through tough times with decreased circulation across the US and other developed countries, Trome records its highest sales because the newspaper speaks to Peruvians in the ‘C level’, referring to an aspiring middle-class on a scale of A to E in their language.

Furthermore, Trome addresses the aspirations of the upwardly mobile: Car dealerships promote easy financing, banks use prizes to lure a largely unbanked population to open checking accounts, schools advertise education for technical careers, etc. Popular segments include an advice column from a waitress, a character called “La Seño Maria.” The paper doesn’t show as much gore, or display as much skin, as other tabloids in the category.

The tabloid hooks readers with weekly prizes, scholarships, and other promotions. It is truly an effective combination of content, which includes news, entertainment, and lot of useful and emotional content mix. PwC projects newspaper circulation in Latin America will grow 10 percent through 2016 and is projected to grow the same in Asia Pacific markets. In Peru, total newspaper circulation rose to nearly 1.9 million in 2012 from 1.2 million in 2007, according to the Society of Journalism Businesses of Peru, or SEPP. Although there is a decline expected in the developed economies belonging to world’s top 10 newspaper markets: Italy, UK, Germany, South Korea, and Japan will see a contraction of up to 2.5 percent through 2017, and the US could face the worst retreat of more than 2.5 percent.

PwC says a core group of eight markets – China, Brazil, India, Russia, the Middle East and North Africa, Mexico, Indonesia, and Argentina – will make up 22 percent of total global entertainment and media revenue in 2017, up from 12 percent in 2008.

By: Savita V Jayaram