The Digital Transformation of Publishing: From Print, to Web and Mobile

The publishing of news has changed significantly throughout the years, particularly with the shift from old-school print to digital. Whilst (in some cases) both work in parallel, the way we create and publish content has evolved significantly.

How News Has Changed

The process of getting news out has gone through a major leap. Let’s take a look at which processes have been abolished, altered, and introduced to keep publishers ahead in the digital age.

1. Size

Tabloid newspapers and magazines all had fixed dimensions; these might have been different between the various publications, yet consistent in their own right. Once the final content and images come to the designer, these are designed, proof-printed, checked, and are ready to go.

In the digital age, the same publication is available in various sizes, on various devices, and consumed in a plethora of ways. This has put an additional burden on the design as it has to look consistent, yet be flexible to work on each given device.

2. Photos & Imagery

Photos used to be provided by professional photographers, then processed, developed, and carefully selected and designed to fit a given space. A single sized-photo would work perfectly.

Just as we mentioned above, the size of photos has had to become flexible, and therefore extra care has to be taken when it comes to various elements:

• The possibility of non-professionally taken photos - sometimes a phone camera will suffice to accompany a news story if no photographer is available, or if it’s considered flash news;
• The different sizes photos need to work in - this might mean that, either multiple photos are provided for the various sizes, i.e. a one-size fits-all approach where an image simply scales up or down, or the artistic direction taken by the photographer and the platform allows cropping and re-sizing of an original image, depending on the situation;
• The file size of the photos - large photos take longer to download, so a quality compromise is sometimes required to get the best possible quality/size balance;
• The introduction of video - imagery no longer needs to be static, and a story could be enhanced with a video (although it is worthwhile to note that while the use of video is becoming increasingly popular, it’s meant to augment rather than replace other forms of content.)

3. Cover Page

The cover page originally featured only a handful of stories: the primary one taking most estate on a paper, with a handful of other articles taking minor real-estate on the page, leading readers to these interesting articles further down the line.

The digital newspaper homepage has changed; we still include the primary article, and usually 3 or 4 more taking much space from what’s above the fold. However, we have also added things like the menu (more on that later) and, most importantly, the space below the fold. The ‘unlimited’ space below the visible part of the screen is being used to showcase and highlight far more articles than would have been possible otherwise.

4. Table of Contents

Most magazines and old-school papers used to feature an index or table of contents, highlighting where you could find certain information and read more about it. Tabloids and newspapers may not have had a table of contents, yet each section would highlight the top content and reference where you’d continue reading - a few page flips and you’re back to your article.

Websites have done away with a table of contents, at least in the old fashioned way. We still provide a ‘table of contents’ through a sitemap to Google, other search engines and bots. However, it’s fairly rare that a similar structure is given to humans. What has replaced this? It’s simple - search! Would you have ever imagined searching for an article? Or searching for a topic within a newspaper? You had to browse through the paper and the different editions instead.

5. Sections

Each publication was usually well split into sections, sometimes with inserts even to nest publications. A header used to denote the section within which one would be reading. Each section of the paper used to start right away with content, i.e. the most relevant news within that section - for more content you’d have to flip through the whole section. If there’s an insert in between, you’d have to pull that out to continue with your uninterrupted reading.

Nowadays, a navigational menu, which allows us to jump from one section to the next with close to no effort, has made navigating through sections far easier. The added levels of classifications (sub-sections) have also increased. A particular advantage of the digital version is the view on these pages - a section page is now a list, similar to the front page or one with an altered layout where you could view the most important content and browse for more.

6. Features

Well thought-out features used to take up a spread (or a couple of pages) and were therefore always limited in content, meaning that the writing and editing skills had to be immaculate. In-depth features fascinated most, and took up significant estate on the paper. Images were also somewhat restricted and, unfortunately, the black and white nature of some of the inner pages never quite did justice to the research being presented.

Features are one of the things which have changed the most within the digital space - for one, space is no longer an issue for the amount of content and imagery, so much so that some even go up to over 4,000 words. The really good stuff, however, does not solely rely on text and images but rather starts to explore the interactive side of things. We have seen the rise of infographics over the last few years - a ‘static’ form of content in which information can be presented in an interesting and original manner. Even more so, the best features use interactive content, charts and graphs that allow users to interact and explore the story.

7. Reviews

Plenty of publications have featured reviews. These used to be heavily relied on when looking to find new restaurants, movies, festivals and variety performances. Reviews were very much a critique of the work, limited in terms of both content and imagery.

Nowadays reviews not only include a critique, but in some cases also allow the users to rate and review themselves. Review scores are automatically aggregated, allowing readers to see what fellow readers think - this shift means that critiques no longer make or break a performance. Use of videos and multiple images (when relevant) also enrich reviews.

8. Time Sensitivity

News via newspapers used to be delivered daily, at best, and sometimes with weekly updates. With no other source to provide news, newspapers were largely sought after by readers. The introduction of radio and TV introduced new players to the game; news was delivered at intervals during the day, though never quite to the detail that a newspaper would. Newspapers thus remained the only major source of regular and in-depth news analysis.

The internet changed everything. News is now expected to be delivered in minutes - in some cases, even seconds. However, this has somehow brought newspapers back into the spotlight. Globalization has created significant competition between publishers, who could previously very easily co-exist in different localities. This forced various publications to evolve, by asking themselves: Are we able to handle breaking news? Should we provide breaking news from partners, or simply amend our brand into one which focuses on more well researched and cultured content?

9. Analytics and Reporting

Back in the day, the only reporting metric of the success of a newspaper was fairly simple - sales. Sales would quantify how many people made a purchase and most likely read something; we also used to calculate what is known as the ‘estimated reach’. So, we had a rough guess of how many people used to read the newspaper by trying to identify how many times a newspaper used to change hands.

In the digital age, sales are certainly not one of the metrics to report on, as much of the content (other than “pay-walled” content) is free. Thus, we have resorted to new metrics which are, at times, hard to follow and understand. We look at the number of ‘page views’, ‘sessions’, ‘users’, and ‘bounce rate’, amongst others. When possible, we measure cross-device usage. We also look at the ‘source’, i.e. from where the users have come to read the content - are they regulars who visit because they know the site? Were they redirected from Google and, if so, what did they search for? If not, who sent them? Reporting has grown so significantly that most publishers now have their own teams.

10. Advertising

Newspapers, prior to TV and radio, were pretty much the only space you could advertise a service - for this, you had to pay a premium. They ran (and still run) classified sections where you can find things. These all rendered income for newspapers, in addition to the fee which readers used to pay.

Within the last few years, expenditure on digital media has significantly increased. However, a large part of this is going to large multinationals, such as Facebook and Google. Niche publications manage to attract decent income through advertising, whilst others have moved or leveraged affiliates. The majority, however, still find it hard to make things work and, as a result, we have seen various technologies come in - from video advertising, to pre-header bidding and re-targeting, amongst many others - and trying to help publishers maximize their income online.

11. Payments

Payments are far simpler to execute and measure when the reader is picking up an actual, physical paper - a dual model of a per-paper sale/cost against subscriptions is generally applied, allowing people to either buy newspapers from the news stand, or receive them at home (or pick-up from their favorite stall on a regular basis.) Prices increase from time to time, but nobody really ever expected to get news or a paper for free.

Fast forward to digital, and expectations have changed; the majority now expect news for free. Thus, a lot of newspapers have become heavily reliant on advertising and other income sources. Few have been bold enough to make the move to selling subscriptions to premium content. This technology, known as paywall, blocks users from reading the full articles unless they are paying members. Most solutions allow papers to decide which content to lock and which not to, allowing them to keep providing low-value content for free (and attract possible subscribers.) Google has also had a part to play in all of this. Their algorithms penalize content which is locked, unless at least 5 other articles are made available for Google users. This technique is known as metering. Recent developments have also seen the introduction of ‘micropayments’, allowing select paid content to be purchased from platforms, such as Blendl, against a small fee. This allows users who do not have a premium subscription to access otherwise pay-locked content from various publications. The option to ask for a refund, when providing a valid reason, is an added incentive for readers to acknowledge the payment if, and only if, they’re happy with the end result.

Conclusion

While all of these developments have taken their toll on publishing companies, big and small, many have made their way through this evolution and emerged all the more successful for it. It’s all about using the technology and its transformation to your best advantage, applying it wisely and strategically to your audience and market to render the best results.

How has the digital transformation of publishing affected your business? We’d love to hear your story.