Ashley Norris

Axel Springer has always been one of the leading innovators in digital technology in the media. Since the early 2000s it has had a robust digital strategy in place which has enabled it to expand its existing brands as well as create and acquire new ones.

The pursuit of big news stories is invariably a collaborative process, with journalists often consulting and working with many others as they piece together their articles. Yet from a technological perspective collaboration hasn't always been easy. Heather Bryant hopes to change all that. In 2015 she created Project Facet, an open source system that she hopes will give journalists the tools they need to collaborate with others more efficiently and effectively.

While there is a lot of discussion in media circles about the potential of automated content, real world examples of bots creating and publishing editorial are still fairly thin on the ground. Bringing bots into the news room can, after all, create many issues for media company owners. From finding the right way to deploy them through to training journalists to optimise their output, the journey to automation can be a tricky one. 

A growing number of media companies are now exploring the opportunities that virtual and augmented reality can deliver. Champions of the emerging platforms claim they take storytelling to a deeper, more emotional level. Yet there are still significant obstacles that media and tech companies will have to overcome before they can take immersive content mainstream.

At a time when media companies are seeking to find alternative sources of revenue to advertising, membership programmes have taken centre stage. Over the past couple of years we have seen The New York Times, The Guardian, Politico and others enjoy huge success in monetising readers in this way.

It has been a fascinating decade for The New York Times, a newspaper that has done perhaps more than any of its rivals to recalibrate online news media business models. 

Zurich-based Neue Zürcher Zeitung is one of the oldest and most respected newspapers in Europe. Yet just five years ago it was also at crossroads, losing ground to its rivals who were innovating digitally. 

Serial startup creator Nancy Spears was one of the first entrepreneurs to spot the potential of online video with the launch of genconnect (the forerunner of genconnectU) nearly a decade ago. She was also one of the first to realise the limitations of an advertising based model and pivot to a subscription based system.

When she presented at DIS 2017 Jennifer Brandel caused many of the media delegates present to look again at the process of how they make decisions in their newsrooms. Hearken, of which she is founder and CEO, offers a ‘listening first’ model supported by a technology platform that enables communities to have a much greater say in the stories that are created for them by publishers.

Formerly known as the Reader's Digest Association, Trusted Media Brands is a multi-platform media company based in New York, that boasts a portfolio of high profile brands. Over the years it had developed a strong and loyal audience for its print products, yet knew it needed to innovate in digital to survive and prosper.