Q&A: Patrick Keane on Associated Content's approach to publishing and the death of engagement
For major publishers, covering real-time and local information is increasingly a struggle. As budgets and bureaus shrink, publications are competing with never ending updates from social media and young upstart news sites on increasingly stretched resources.
Associated Content is one of those crowd sourced news organizations that often strike fear in the hearts of traditional publishers. Rather than funding huge newsrooms around the country, Associated Content that lets anyone publish content and try to make money off off of it. The network taps into a growing cadre of citizen journalists and professional writers who want to have their voices heard.
Revenues have grown 100% year over year, for the last five years. Patrick Keane has been CEO for the past year, and seen the company's roster grow to over 300,000 registered contributors. Those writers publish about 10,000 new pieces of content weekly.
Keane (who is not related to me) came from Google, and brings a data driven approach to content to his new company. It shows in their approach to publishing. Rather than relying on brand to promote their content, Associated Content finds readers through searchers interested in specific topics. According to Comscore, they have 16 million unique visitors monthly, and 90% come through search.
If that's not enough to make other publishers who depend on their trusted brands nervous, articles like Keane's AdWeek piece — The Case Against Engagement — are sure to do it. But Keane doesn't see Associated Content as a competitor — or threat — to traditional news media. I caught up with him to find out why.
At SxSW, startups hope to solve the problem of Twitter event flooding
As any event organizer knows, getting people to communicate and interact at your event can be crucial to its success. And for attendees, Twitter has become a great resource for locating and sharing real-time data. But for everyone else, Twitter updates surrounding one topic can quickly turn into noise.
It's a problem that is especially heightened at SxSW, when techies flood the zone of Austin and their friends back home are inundated with information about it. While it could potentially be solved by better filtering on Twitter, two companies are trying to stake their claim in the space this week.
Digital Cream Report Part 2: Social Commerce & Email
Last week some of us from Econsultancy US had the pleasure of
traveling to London for the Digital Cream event (the equivalent of
September's Peer Summit
in New York). The day included a short talk on hot topics from the
US perspective. In Part One, we looked at social media in general. This post finishes up with social commerce and email.
JetBlue gives away 1,000 tickets on Twitter
Twitter seems to be one of the first places disgruntled flyers turn when they think an airline has done them wrong. But that doesn't mean the airlines don't love Twitter.
When it came time to celebrate its 10th anniversary, U.S.-based airline JetBlue turned to the popular social media hub and its more than 1.6m followers.
Digital Nuts: the winners of London's newest poker event
On Wednesday night Econsultancy hosted its inaugural poker
tournament, called Digital Nuts. It was a great event, if we ignore the
fact that nobody at this end made it onto the final table!
The game was Texas Hold ‘Em, and it turns out that the internet industry knows how to play it. There were five tables, 50 players and a £2,000 prize pool up for grabs.
Can Microsoft persuade users to switch to Bing?
Microsoft is launching a TV ad campaign this week to attempt to persuade web users to make the switch from Google to Bing.
After seeing the Bing ad, which attacks the 'information overload' of Google's results, presumably a few Google users will be persuaded to give Bing a try, but will they be impressed enough to stick with it?
Judging by some user testing I've seen, it will take a lot more from Bing to get users to make the switch...
Why behavioural targeting is not the be all and end all
With many high-profile cases of behavioural targeting going awry, too many digital advertisers are seeing behavioural targeting as the be all and end all of their campaigns.
Is Twitter any use for retailers?
The growing popularity of Twitter has led thousands of businesses to launch profiles, and there is no surer way for a company to be seen as ‘not getting it’ as to not be tweeting.
In March the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported that 700,000 businesses in the UK had active accounts. and across the blogosphere and in company boardrooms the platform is being breathlessly talked up as the future of online customer communication.
But, hyperbole aside, how well does Twitter work as a channel for reaching customers and generating sales?
Pink Floyd tracks: goodbye cruel (digital) world?
Interested in taking a trip back to the 1960s and 70s? You had better download individual tracks of your favorite Pink Floyd songs quickly.
Thanks to a High Court ruling that gave Pink Floyd a small victory over record label EMI in a battle over millions in royalties, individual tracks of the legendary rock band's music could potentially leave the digital world at some point.
National Trust: iPhone app review
The National Trust has just released an iPhone app which pinpoints properties and places of interest near the user's location, something which could be a good way for the Trust to attract more casual visitors to its sites.
I've been trying out the app...
Websites vs Facebook Pages: which URL should you promote? 
10 heinous usability crimes committed by Playmobil
Google
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
