Articles by Lin Grensing-Pophal
They started graduating from college and entering the workforce around 2002, according to most sources, although the precise dates for when the millennial generation (aka GenY or Digital Natives) starts and ends vary quite a bit. Technology has always been part of their world. They have always had multiple sources for information and take the ability to be connected 24/7 for granted. According to the Beloit College's Mindset List, this year's entering college graduation class of 2016 was "born into cyberspace." But, despite the fact that these young adults are certainly comfortable with technology, there is growing evidence to suggest that many are eschewing technology and embracing a growing nostalgia for simpler times.
News/News Feature -
September 2013 Issue,
Posted Sep 30, 2013
Mobile advertising is on the rise-who do you know who doesn't have a smart phone these days? In fact, according to the Pew Internet Project's research on mobile technology, 91% of American adults have a cell phone-56% have a smartphone. That level of penetration presents both opportunities and challenges to content providers hoping not only to connect with their audiences, but also to monetize those interactions in some way.
News/News Feature -
Posted Sep 27, 2013
Publishers aren't alone in their quest to determine what resonates with their audiences as they attempt to use various social media tools to connect with and engage them. For instance, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that it is in the market for a digital tool to help monitor how effectively it's reaching its audience with its messages and whether their response to these messages are positive or negative. And when you aren't pushing content views as your primary goal, it can be hard to know exactly what your social media metrics are and what they mean.
News/News Feature -
Posted Aug 21, 2013
Last year's mobile data traffic was nearly 12 times the size of the entire internet in 2000, according to Cisco. Global mobile data traffic in 2012 was 885 petabytes per month, compared to internet traffic of 75 petabytes per month in 2000. That's a lot of bytes-and traffic continues to grow.Given this exponential growth, and related opportunity, organizations of all kinds are eagerly looking for creative ways to connect and compel consumers to engage with their content, and their advertising, via mobile devices. As they do this, they're looking for effective ways to monetize those apps to drive revenue to the bottom line in ways that range from paid content to advertising, and more.
Editorial/Feature -
July/August 2013 Issue,
Posted Aug 19, 2013
Suppose you've had an active Twitter account since 2008 and you've been posting, on average, about three tweets a day, five days, a week, 50 weeks a year at about 140 characters/tweet-that's about 115,500 words, or the equivalent of about three books' worth of content. But, if you haven't been collecting, aggregating and effectively using that content, it is literally "lost in cyberspace."
News/News Feature -
Posted Jul 24, 2013
For some time, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have been the "big three" of social media, but a new and very powerful player -- Google+ -- has changed the social media landscape, especially for B2B marketers. Already overwhelmed with the multiple options and rapidly expanding time and resource commitment required to remain relevant across multiple communication channels, B2B marketers find themselves faced with a big decision-stick with LinkedIn or become engaged with Google+? Or both?
News/News Feature -
Posted Jul 17, 2013
As organizations and individuals work to build their Twitter followers they eagerly watch for mentions and RTs (retweets). And then they spot something like this: "XYZ E-publication is out today! Top stories by @thisperson @thatperson @YOU!" Your first inclination is to quickly RT the tweet to all of your followers and respond to the poster with a heart-felt "gee, thanks so much for including me!" But, wait a minute, is there any real value in this kind of exposure?
News/News Feature -
Posted Jun 19, 2013
In a world of free content -- from app to university classes from the likes of Princeton and MIT -- the consumer is making out like a bandit, while content producers wring their hands over the prospect of finding a way to make money. Companies are being forced to find new ways to market their services to encourage people to pay. How? Increasingly, it's through customized experiences.
News/News Feature -
Posted Feb 20, 2013
Socializing Your CEO, a report released by Weber Shandwick indicates that only 18% the CEOs of the largest companies in the world have their own social network pages-a 2% increase from the 2010 report. It would appear that CEOs are simply not jumping on the social media bandwagon, at least not personally. In fact, in a search of the CEOs of the top 25 companies, according to Fortune, Margaret C. Whitman with Hewlett-Packard is the only CEO whose profile shows up (though it lists her as Director of EBay and she only has six connections). What gives?
News/News Feature -
Posted Feb 06, 2013
Gartner has predicted that, by 2015, "big data" will generate 4.4 million jobs globally. The bad news? Only one-third of those jobs will be filled. Why? There is a shortage of skilled analysts to do the work.
News/News Feature -
Posted Jan 11, 2013
The ability to build online networks has been boosted significantly by social media sites that deliver literally millions of potential prospects to content providers hoping to grow an audience. These sites vastly expedite the process of gaining online momentum requiring much less time and expense than what was required prior to the days of Web 2.0.
News/News Feature -
Posted Jan 07, 2013
For every brave soul that posts a comment on a website or blog there are likely hundreds of others simply lurking in the background. Content providers crave interaction and want to encourage discussion, yet many find themselves faced with a dearth of comments, save for perhaps those spammy postings that pop up every once in a while. What can they do?
News/News Feature -
Posted Nov 30, 2012
What happens if the lights go out? It's a question that strikes fear into the hearts of content providers everywhere--especially those that have transitioned from preserving hard copies to digital storage. Decisions about how to protect content-in this case, digital content--should be based both on an assessment of the purpose and value of that content and the development of a policy that outlines what is stored and how it is stored.
News/News Feature -
November 2012 Issue,
Posted Nov 20, 2012
Pinterest is a relatively new entrant to the social media market. As a virtual pinboard, the mission of the site is to "connect everyone in the world through the ‘things' they find interesting." The site offers some examples under the heading "What Can You Do With Pinterest?" that include: redecorating your home, planning a wedding, finding your style, saving your inspirations and saving your recipes. While these suggested uses are prevalent among the site's participants, other uses are springing up regularly as individuals and businesses find new, and increasingly practical, uses. Content providers are among them-using Pinterest to share information on the environment, events, jobs and more.
News/News Feature -
Posted Nov 14, 2012
Social media has provided us with a world with no boundaries and has allowed small companies to dream of having a global reach. But, along with opportunities come challenges-chief among them is navigating the tricky terrain of communication and social differences in diverse geographies. In 2010, Buddy Media, Inc., a New York City-based software-as-a-service company that works with some of the top global advertisers, conducted a study that looked at the gap between the perceived potential of global social media and the actual level of achievement. The survey of 105 Fortune 1000 brand managers was conducted by Harris Interactive, Inc. While 72% of respondents indicated that social media offers great opportunity to reach existing and potential customers around the world, they also indicated that they were lacking the tools and information necessary to leverage global social media effectively.
Editorial/Feature -
October 2012 Issue,
Posted Oct 22, 2012
It's a digital world out there, and keeping up with the latest trends and developments would be nearly impossible for most of us without the help of the professionals. Just like the rest of us, digital content executives need guidance when it comes to staying on top of industry news while weeding out the extraneous information. From relatively widely known sources to the more niche-focused, there is no shortage of information for content producers. In truth, every day new options enter the market representing the best thinking from myriad minds around the globe.
Editorial/Feature -
September 2012 Issue,
Posted Sep 03, 2012
In the traditional publishing model, an author with an idea would need to attract the attention of an agent or publisher who would evaluate the idea and the author's credentials and abilities in order to make a decision. Stories abound of frustrated authors who faced rounds of rejection before finding a home for their work-or simply giving up. Some of those rejected had truly brilliant insights and, ultimately, popular prose to offer. Notable among them are Stephen King, George Orwell, and J.K. Rowling.
Editorial/Feature -
May 2012 Issue,
Posted May 02, 2012
Just as a keyboard doesn't make someone a journalist, a camera and editing software doesn't make someone a videographer. There is a range of quality represented in the archives of YouTube-nearly 8 years' worth of video from hundreds of millions of users. Those are staggering numbers. What is driving this level of production and, presumably, related consumption of video content?
Editorial/Feature -
April 2012 Issue,
Posted Apr 23, 2012
Few, if any, would argue that the internet has dramatically and permanently changed the publishing industry. As print publishers have scrambled to find ways to compete with and, ultimately, embrace the digital world, some are excelling through a combination of traditional and online options. Others, new to publishing, are operating in the online-only world, but everyone is dealing with the age-old problem of circulation building and audience development.
Editorial/Feature -
November 2011 Issue,
Posted Nov 16, 2011
There is little room for debate: The introduction of the iPad has changed the computing environment irrevocably. It's a device that is rapidly breaking down the barriers between the traditional desktops, laptops, and mobile devices and significantly impacting how-and where-consumers access information. As a consequence, another trend is also emerging: the move from the wide-open web to semi-closed platforms that use the internet for transport but not the browser for display.
Editorial/Feature -
July/August 2011 Issue,
Posted Aug 17, 2011
Discovery has never been a simple process for organizations, even in the "old days" when discovery generally entailed gathering piles of documents into large boxes and wading through them by hand. Information long ago evolved from print documents to electronic formats, which has created challenges and opportunities.
Editorial/Feature -
May 2011 Issue,
Posted May 11, 2011
If you talk to "those in the know" in the technology world, they'll tell you that HTML5 is really nothing new. In fact, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community that "develops standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web," created its working draft of the "HTML5 Publication Notes" back in June 2008. While some of the new features afforded by HTML5 have already been incorporated into various webpages and applications, it's the iPad that made HTML go mainstream.
News/News Feature -
March 2011 Issue,
Posted Mar 10, 2011
In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that several popular Facebook applications had been transmitting users' personal identifying information to literally dozens of advertising and internet tracking companies. While Facebook maintains that there is "no evidence that any personal information was misused or even collected as a result of this issue," not all observers have been appeased.
Editorial/Feature -
January/February 2011 Issue,
Posted Feb 17, 2011
With the proliferation of search-oriented online content providers such as AOL, Yahoo!, Demand Media, and About.com, internet users are increasingly likely to find that most of the general searches they do return results from these SEO-oriented content creators and so-called "content farms". Whether this is a good or a bad thing from the user perspective remains to be seen—and opinions vary. But from general tactics, to long tail search and universal search strategies, SEO remains critical to web publishers.
Editorial/Feature -
October 2010 Issue,
Posted Sep 29, 2010
There is a new breed of content creator seeking to dominate the world of search-based information gathering by leveraging keyword-driven editorial missions and a huge supply of journalists who currently find themselves in need of revenue streams. Are these so-called content farms the end of cultivated content or do they represent a necessary state in the evolution of the content creation model?
Editorial/Feature -
September 2010 Issue,
Posted Aug 23, 2010
Although evidence continues to suggest that students and consumers in general are not yet ready (if they ever will be) to entirely give up print as an information source, e-readers, e-technology, and etextbooks are becoming increasingly common. As consumers become more familiar with the options that technology provides in terms of lower cost, personalized access to information, and accessibility anytime, anywhere, the impact on the textbook market is unavoidable.
Editorial/Feature -
April 2010 Issue,
Posted Apr 14, 2010
In September, The Washington Post's senior editor Milton Coleman published guidelines to the paper's staff members about their activities on the internet-while on and off the job. His email to staff said, in part: "Social networks ... can be valuable tools in gathering and disseminating news and information. They also create some potential hazards we need to recognize. When using social networking tools for reporting or for our personal lives, we must remember that Washington Post journalists are always Washington Post journalists." It was the "or for our personal lives" part that created a firestorm for The Washington Post. But its concern about what its staff members-particularly reporters-are saying online is understandable.
Editorial/Feature -
January/February 2010 Issue,
Posted Jan 22, 2010