Publishzer has launched our first product The Fashion Mags. Early reaction is super positive and we have reached 100 000 readers in 10 days. It is a good start.
There is a great coverage of the launch at ArcticStartup.
All posts by Teppo Hudson
20 PostsPublishzer awarded for “Best Design”!
This is awesome. Publishzer was chosen as the winner of Best Design category at Arctic15 startup competition. The winning means a great title as one of the best designed services in the nordics, and we are still striving to make it even better. it also means we are presenting our service at the conference in October. Right now we are franticly preparing our pitch and are looking for meet great people there.
Thank you so much for your support. We are humbled.
Publishzer nominated for “Best Design” at Arctic15
Please vote for us. Publishzer is nominated as one of the 5 semi-finalists on Arctic15 conference in Helsinki. We are proud to have the tag “Best Design” attached to us. Go vote us here: http://arctic15.com/startup-competition/
A Better Way to Advertise
I have a dream: In 5 years, the online banner advertising must not exist as we know it. The experience is so horrible for each one involved. The advertiser gets really low engaging impressions, the user gets over exposure of banners and advertising agencies get ever decreasing rates of advertising.
There must be a better way.
Since we started out at Publishzer, we are looking for ways to deliver a much better experience, by not emphasising the importance of impressions. We are looking into the importance of relationships, into a commodity that retains its value and is able to push advertising towards recommendation-between-people. But what is needed to push Publishzer into selling relationships, not impressions.
1. An offering that cannot be commoditized.
There is an abundance of banner advertising on the web. There is now scarcity of ways to use banners and due to the excess of banner option, the price will plummed as the demand will not meet the offering.
The only way to succeed and leapfrog the other banner-comparable options, Publishzer will be able to command higher price point and give better earning opportunities to the bloggers. Scarcity of sources with huge reach and a product that cements relationship for life could be a killer combination.
2. Advertising should not be onetime conversation
Banners often relay on one-time click to reach the customers. Better way in our minds is the opportunity to offer beautiful magazine spreads, that invite you to understand the context and conversation around the brand. Even better, what is the brand is not advertised, but recommended through an enthusiastic expert the reader is following daily.
3. The service should enhances the experience
Related to the previous point, Publishzer has to enhance the content and context the message is been seen. For example fashion magazine advertising are so compelling that they are actually an important part of the content. The online advertising cannot retain the current way of interruption.
We want to create the same experience on the web, where video, text and images create amazing curated pieces of information. It is beautiful to look at and excited you to understand more.
4. We will guard the bloggers
For us the bloggers are the kings and queens. We will never let the advertisers to dictate the subjective thoughts of bloggers. However, the bloggers have to show their knowhow and enthusiasm for the brands they work with. This approach is the basis of enabling authentic recommendation that really engages the audience and ads to the content.
Overall we believe, there is a huge opportunity for the entire digital media industry. Online advertising has become a commodity (thanks, Google!). With combined effort to make advertising more valuable than offline advertising, we can increase the value of the pie for everyone. And most importantly, make advertising interesting again, rather than interrupting.
Game changers – the impact of the internet on the creative industries.
The most important change in the creative industries in recent years is the huge increase in the amount of information produced. When the supply of media and art content becomes greater than demand, the value of the content approaches zero. We are moving towards a time when there will be unlimited access to content, and value is created on reasons to experience certain content over the other. This growth is changing how we interact and experience the online world. I would like to expand on this and point out why participation is driving the change in the media and curation.
One point of view on the changes of media is to argue that artist is the game changer. You know, musician now being able to create personal connections with the listeners and offer methods of acquiring the creative piece directly. Distribution can be controlled via technology at home, meaning the game changers are definitely not the traditional music labels, publishing houses or broadcasters. The artist is much better positioned to take advantage on the opportunities for the participation.
Participation as the central part of experience, has been in my interest for years. I’ve dreamed up in London how paintings would be more interesting if people could touch them, installations would bring more emotions when you can walk amongst them and music would be best when listened live. As a blogger since 2004, i’ve betting my work on the fact that “objective” journalism will subdue to “subjective” blogging, where participation is a driving force to grow and retain audience. Through these experiences it does seem that artist is entering a new kind of era, where everyone is expecting curation to be part of the content:
1. Creative work cannot rely on collecting and publishing content. Participation and communication are central part of any creative content from now on.
2. Because of the first point: Content is King, Context is King Kong.
3. Capability of the technology used for presentation is equally important as the art itself.
4. Limits of content no more have impact on consumptions. Only thing limiting is the quality of curation ie. question “why this experience and not that”.
In addition, growing trends of art and media consumption are powering the designers of tools to be the game changers. Right beside the artists themselves. Therefore, major part of the impact of the internet on creative industries is the ability of technology to power participation and communication.
Risks that creation will become populist work, where artistic reflection takes no place, are far from the truth. Successful creative projects always derive their success from the connections and ability to create context for their work. This means focus on the most important features and development of audience in a lean way. To succeed in this, engage your audience to refine concepts, processes and practises. Hmmm…sounds a lot like lean startup methods, which it is in many ways.
The designing of experience, context and curation are THE art. Content comes second and will have no value (even if given for free) without the experience. That is the impact of the internet as we are moving from studios and galleries to the streets and screens.
Kill Banners and Purchase Time
A lot of people are spending time online today, so obviously advertising money is flowing to the internet as well. Yet, time is not really a factor at all when it comes to valuing online advertising. The length of time spend with the brand and the ad is the most important factor in determining the effectiveness of the ad. With banners and CPM, the advertising takes no consideration of the time.
I mean sure the repetition lead to clicks and eventual action, but the repetition itself has no real value. Especially as we are more and more “blind” to the banners and when compared to the well thought recommendations from our peers. Also I might close the browser window so fast that the banner didn’t even load, still the advertiser pays the same amount when compared to the person who stays on the page for three minutes. A recent comScore study states that 31% of ads are delivered but never seen by a customer.
This CPM model drives publisher to deliver huge amount of impressions that create web page clutter and a poor user exprience. The problem becomes apparent when we think how effective the advertising is within content, or in many cases is the content. People are motived by and are looking to spend time with the content. Therefore the purchase cost for advertisers should be more like cost per second (CPS) model, where each second spend with the content is valued. The most valuable customers anyway spend time with the brand and therefore advertisers should be more willing to compensate publishers for those high-value users.
This is a very simplified expression on the idea that we will most likely develop further. But think about it. What if publishers would rather have less banners, and more highly valuable content that users are interested to spend time with. Isn’t that the picture we all want the online publishing to be?
Picture Source
Brands as Publishers
Slides from a recent presentation. I will write a more in depth article on this topic eventually. -Teppo
Brands as Publishers
View more presentations from Teppo Hudson
Publishzer co-founder Teppo Hudson a “social media expert”
HS.fi, the largest daily in scandinavia, mentiones Publishzer co-founder Teppo Hudson as “sosiaalisen median asiantuntija” or social media expert.
This is related to the latest event, where Teppo was a part of the team that handled a successful Facebook and Twitter conversation event for the mayor of Helsinki, Jussi Pajunen.
