Ashley Norris

2018 might have been a challenging year for its parent company Facebook, but for Instagram it has largely been business as usual. The image/video based platform has posted excellent traffic and revenue figures and has continued to establish itself as one of the social media channels of choice for Generation Z.

AT DIS 2018 one of the hottest topics was the future of paid for content. As Juan Señor of Innovation Media Consulting said in his presentation, “if it is valued, if it is unique, if it is something you can't get anywhere else, and if it speaks to their passions, makes them smarter, gives them advantages, and entertains them, then much like everything else that does that, readers should pay for it.”

The rise of artificial intelligence in general, and machine learning in particular, has been an emerging theme at DIS for several years now. In 2018 the topic hit the mainstream as it was analysed in no fewer than five sessions with eight experts giving their views. The topics the presenters ran through ranged from the general impact AI will have on society, through to advice on how to harness the technology to monetise content now.

Throughout DIS 2018 representatives of companies from across the globe have taken to the stage to share their insights about how they are growing their businesses. For the mid morning segment on the second day, execs from two tech based companies, both of whom have a very strong print heritage, explained how they had adapted their business models and where they are likely to venture to in the future. They both constantly referenced premium quality content as being at the core of their strategy.

Although much of the DIS this year has focused on emerging revenue streams, advertising remains a huge industry that is vital to both brands and publishers. Bernhard Glock, senior  VP Medialink, who is also a former President of the World Federation of Advertisers, is ideally placed to offer a 360 perspective on the future of the medium.  

Blockchain, which was one of the key buzzwords of 2017, is a technology that its champions believe will transform many industries. 2018 has seen the hype around Blockchain abate a little, so now seems to be an apposite moment for publishers to take a serious look at what the technology is, and how it could impact on both the way they publish and monetise content.

The South China Morning Post has a long and distinguished history. As its CEO Gary Liu explained at the Digital Innovators’ Summit, it is also a news organisation that was until recently mired in legacy processes with old ways of looking at content and distribution. In his presentation he outlined many of the steps that he and his management team are taking to modernise it.

The Digital Innovators' Summit is just days away now. You can still buy tickets for the event in Berlin next week, but you'll have to be quick.

One of the trickiest problems facing newsrooms and magazine publishers is finding a content management system robust enough to cope with the myriad challenges of digital publishing. It is a problem that The Washington Post has sought to address with Arc. The system, which is available to other publishers as a hosted SaaS platform, combines traditional CMS style features alongside advanced analytics suites, revenue solutions and a whole lot more. 

Monetising content sympathetically, rather than alienating users by being too disruptive, is perhaps the biggest challenge facing media companies today.